


This Business of Adulting

by droid_girl



Series: Trope-ical Places [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst, Attempt at humour, Dark, Dark Comedy, Dating sucks, Domestic Violence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Minor Hermione Granger/Oliver Wood, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Modern Era, Older Man/Younger Woman, Past Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Remus Lupin Hates Cats, Remus is an idiot, Roommates, Sirius is a man-whore, Slow Burn, bad language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-06-15 07:23:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 79,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15407934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/droid_girl/pseuds/droid_girl
Summary: MUGGLE AU that will become a Roommate AU!Three years ago, Hermione did the adult thing by getting married.Three years after, Hermione does theveryadult thing by filing for a separation.Hopping from sofa to sofa as she tries to maneuver life after a disastrous marriage, Hermione finds herself rescued from relentless crying babies and party-animals by none other than earnest widower Remus Lupin.A story about how adulting should really have come with some sort of handbook...forallage groups.





	1. Prologue Part I

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize in advance for this silly idea that might also have gotten out of hand. 
> 
> Warning: Characters are all going to display dick-traits at some point. Some earlier than others.

**Prologue Part 1**

**Summer, Three Years Prior**

The wedding took place on a sweltering Thursday morning in August.

It also happened to be the third wedding of the year which Remus had been invited to. The first ceremony he had attended had been Harry and Ginny’s, which had been held back in April on a warm-ish spring morning.

The second wedding he had shown up for had been his own. That had taken place on a cloudy, chilly day in June.

Now, seated in the middle of a stifling church - an old, ornate monstrosity at that - Remus wondered if the season of holy matrimony was finally coming to a close. Frankly, he didn’t relish the prospect of having to deal with the trouble of having his suit dry cleaned. Again.

There was no doubt in his mind that by the time this particular service was finished, his clothes would stink to high heaven. The stone structure within which the guests had all been trapped, had no air conditioning installed, and all the stained-glass windows were firmly sealed shut.

Uncharitably, Remus wondered if the deacons of the church all bore a shared grudge against the luxury of air-circulation. Perhaps, he thought, they viewed the ability to _breathe_ as a form of un-Christian decadence.

“Stop fidgeting,” his wife whispered out the corner of her mouth. The crowd around them murmured impatiently as they waited for the bride to materialize.

“I’m hot,” he retorted petulantly, as he fussed once more at his softening collar.

“We’re all hot,” Tonks sounded as if she were about to lose her temper. “Try being pregnant _and_ crammed into a silk dress in this weather,”

When the woman had a point, she had a point, Remus supposed.

At least _he_ had the option eventually of removing his dove grey suit jacket to cool off. Poor Tonks was already down to her sleeveless silk shift, having been forced to strip away her elegant bolero. Light pink hair was plastered down against the side of her elfin face, as she perspired in misery.

“Did you need to step outside?” he asked in concern, putting aside his own discomfort. “Is this…is all this perspiration _normal_ at this stage?”

To his relief, Tonks cracked a smile at him, dispelling her sullen air of irritation. “All the books say different things. The forums aren’t any help either…but if it makes you feel any better, I don’t think it’s _ab_ normal,”

“This entire business of procreation is quite a lot more complicated than I had anticipated,” Remus grinned. Looking around, he changed the subject.

“I didn’t think Hermione was the type to want a church wedding,”

That slightly pinched expression returned to Tonk’s face as she regarded her husband. In a strained voice, she told him, “It’s almost as if you don’t listen to a word I say. The church wasn’t Hermione’s first choice. That sensible, darling girl wanted a garden ceremony. It was bloody Cormac that wanted this,”

Darting his gaze up to the altar, Remus studied the groom. The man stood stock still, looking for all the world as if he was trembling with excitement over what was about to happen. Excitement or dread - it was easy to confuse the two sometimes.

“I was a bit surprised when she told us,” Tonks said in a low voice.

“He was persistent,” Remus shrugged, not misunderstanding in the least what his wife was actually talking about. “And you know what our Hermione is like. She’s had a life plan written out since she was ten years old. For better or for worse, Cormac somehow fits into that plan,”

To his mind, Hermione’s method to living was admirable and terrifying all at once…but then who was he to judge? It wasn’t as if Remus had ever been very good at life plans. The heavy gold ring he donned on his left hand was testament enough to how useless he actually was, at plotting the course of his existence.

“I’m sure they’ll be happy together,” Remus murmured. “He’s…sturdy,”

“ _I_ wish she and Ron had given things a go,” Tonks admitted. “They would have made such a lovely match. Didn’t they go out for a bit a few years ago?”

“Are you crazy woman?” he choked out a laugh as he twitched again at his collar. “One month more, and Hermione would have been arrested on charges of murder,”

His wife sighed. “But at least…”

Sharing a glance, the couple fell silent. From the pew immediately behind them, Remus’s best friend leaned forwards and murmured, “You two are not being as quiet as you think,”

“Oh sod _off_ Sirius,” Remus rolled his eyes.

“It’s a good thing it’s just us that’s eavesdropping,” Fred Weasley said. Both he and his twin brother George were seated to either side of Sirius; both of them looked identically sour. “For the record, we hate McLaggen’s git-face but…”

“…we’re actually very grateful ‘Mione didn’t end up with Ronniekins,” George concluded. “He’s a pain in the arse, but he’s still our baby brother. I for one, never relished the thought of seeing him murdered…though I’m sure it would have been quite entertaining,”

Ginny, who was seated beside Tonks, chortled unsubtly. The red-headed Weasley daughter leaned over and whispered, “Listen you lot, it’s Hermione’s day…”

“Exactly. Can we all _try_ to be supportive,” Remus grunted, pushing his own misgivings as far down his gut as he possibly could.

“Doesn’t this make you glad _we_ simply held a small civil ceremony?” Tonks whispered, this time softly enough so only he could hear. Evidently, she had learned from her mistake a few minutes ago.

Remus was saved from answering as the organs started up. Up front, the groom straightened as a grin spread across his broad and handsome features.

Grimacing, Remus concurred with Fred’s earlier assessment pertaining to Cormac.

The arsehole certainly did own a bit of a git-face.

“Please rise for the bride,” the Minister requested from his pulpit.

Dutifully, the man did as he was bid, and turned his gaze towards the entrance of the church.

Behind the bride’s two Groomsmen, both of whom stood incongruously beside Cormac’s Best Men, Hermione hovered as a lone figure in ivory, the sight of which sent a pang through Remus’s chest. Her chin was tilted proudly upwards, and her eyes were shining with something that looked a lot like defiance.

Frowning, Remus found it hard to ignore how odd a picture she made. The way he understood these things, brides were supposed to be blushing, ecstatic creatures in visions of white. They were supposed to be excited and thrilled as they took their first steps towards their betrothed.

Brides weren’t supposed to look defiant and challenging on the morning of their wedding, as if they were staring down the length of a gauntlet.

Casting his mind back to his own wedding day, Remus couldn’t remember exactly, Tonks’s expression as she walked into the little government office.

All he remembered from that morning, was staring down at a stack of documents laid out on the judge’s desk as cold sweat pasted his previously-starched shirt against his back. That, and Sirius pressing a pen into his hand, urging quietly, “It’s your turn,”

In the present, he watched as the bride approached the altar, trailing after Harry and Ron. The two boys were paired with Cormac’s cousin and best mate, respectively, and as he understood it, there had been an explosive row between the happy couple when Hermione had insisted that her two best friends would be part of her little bridal party.

From Cormac’s decidedly old-fashioned perspective, Hermione’s bridal party should have consisted only of women. Certainly, it should not have consisted of two strapping young men, and even more certainly, they should not have consisted of males she had dated in her careless youth.

As always however, the woman got her way, and here they all stood, with Ron standing immediately beside Harry up at the altar.

Funny to think she was still only twenty-three at the end of it. Was that really such a wise age to tie herself down for the rest of her life? Did she have any idea, the options that she could have availed herself to?

Remus shook himself from such pointless meanderings. She was a grown woman, and her decisions would be respected, and that was that.

Firmly, he reminded himself that James and Lily Potter had been _much_ younger by far, when Harry had been conceived, and when they had gotten hitched. Though… _those_ two had only been eighteen, and very, very stupid, in honest hindsight.

In dismal fascination, Remus observed as Hermione Granger pledged herself to Cormac McLaggen, until death did them part.

***

The sunset reception was quite a lot less oppressive than the ceremony.

Peonies bloomed all around in the well appointed garden, accompanied by other summer blooms Remus couldn’t necessarily name. The tables and tent poles were all festooned with soft blues and silvers, with the occasional white rose tucked tastefully into heavy folds.

Everywhere, guests could see hints of Molly Weasley’s admittedly tasteful touch. Certainly, the woman was worth every penny she charged in her capacity as a Wedding Planner.

Molly, who was still wiping away at sparse tears as they dribbled slowly down her cheeks. The woman had spent most of the ceremony sitting up front, alternating between soft sniffling and large smiles as she surveyed the marriage she had help orchestrate for a hefty fee.

In the past six months, the woman had practically adopted the bride, which would have been very touching if Remus didn’t halfway suspect that Hermione herself wasn’t overly keen on the Weasley matriarch’s overwhelming enthusiasm. In fact, the man secretly wondered if Molly hadn’t forced her services on the happy couple through sheer force of will alone…

There had been a time when Mrs. Weasley had temporarily ex-communicated Hermione, for daring to be with anyone who wasn’t her precious Ronniekins.

“God, it’s a bit of a bloody shame,” Sirius said, swirling his tumbler of whiskey as he stalked up close to the bar where Remus was brooding.

“Oh don’t _you_ start,” Remus sniped.

“Do you even know what I’m referring to?” Sirius asked sardonically, tucking his free hand into the pocket of his tailored suit jacket.

Several women - and men - stared shamelessly at his best friend with open, lascivious intent. Most of them, Remus knew, were more interested in the walking business opportunity that was Sirius Black, than whatever it was he kept in his trousers.

Now that he thought about it, Remus realized that most of the guests were treating the wedding reception as if it were some sort of networking event, rather than a celebration of everlasting love. As it stood, his pockets were bulging with unsolicited business cards, most of which he would likely bin once he left the surrounding festivities.

Throwing back another few swallows of the lacklustre beer he had in his hand, Remus turned his attention back towards the man-child whom he had called friend for over two decades.

“If I had to guess, it’s to do with the fact Hermione’s gone and married a man whose greatest achievement in life involves blocking a ball from entering a massive net through the literal use of his head. Considering the fact that he’s a bloody _solicitor_ , what does that really say about him?”

“Mate, some would say that’s one hell of an achievement,” Sirius pointed out, casting him an indecipherable look. “A scholar _and_ an athlete,”

“It’s just…” Remus studied Hermione as she weaved her way through the party, with her hand tucked firmly into the crook of her new husband’s elbow. The smile she wore looked uncomfortable and unfamiliar, and the falseness of it chafed horribly at him. “I can’t help but think she could have done so much better,”

“Of course _you_ would think so,” Sirius mused. “You know, for the longest time, I thought it would be her and Harry in the end. Then she went with Ron, and Harry started seeing Ginny. Actually, for a while, I honestly thought…”

His best friend paused as though weighing his words. Clearing his throat, he concluded, “It no longer matters what I thought,”

Remus scowled and turned back towards the bar. “Hermione’s made her choice. We need to respect her wishes,”

“You’re turning this celebration into a funeral,” Sirius sighed. “Anyway, before you went and interrupted me, what I was trying to say, was that it’s far too bad Hermione didn’t have any _bridesmaids_. You know how those girls get during weddings…”

“You’ve been watching too many Hollywood films,” Remus groused.

Sirius looked amused. “Could you at least try for a smile? Weddings are supposed to be cheerful, happy occasions,”

“Yes, of course they are,” Remus hesitated. “It’s just…”

The other man levelled a glare at him. “If this is about my cousin…”

“Well what do you want me to say, exactly?” Remus demanded bluntly. “This wasn’t exactly…this whole marriage wasn’t exactly part of my plan,”

“Plan?” Sirius asked, his voice dropped to an indignant whisper. “What was your _plan_ then eh? Were you going to drift through life being a lonely bastard, whinging about every little cock-up as it happens?”

“That’s a little harsh coming from you,” Remus retorted, aggrieved. Somewhere close by, Tonks was speaking animatedly to their friends, praising the ceremony and the ensuing reception. Judging from the crease in her brow, he could tell her sentiments weren’t altogether sincere.

“I just meant that I’m a bit nervous about this whole…being a _father_ thing….”

“Oh,” Sirius paused. “It’s not that hard really,”

“You spent the first five years as Harry’s guardian sneaking drinks in the attic the moment he dropped off to bed,” Remus reminded his friend. “How many times did you show up at my doorstep, begging me for help,”

“I adjusted,” Sirius waved breezily. “It got easier,”

“So that’s your recommendation? Get drunk for the first seven years of my firstborn’s life?” Remus quirked a brow.

Sirius sighed. “You’re basically half a pseudo-parent to Harry…”

“Which makes me what, a pseudo-uncle?” Remus commented dryly. “Do you know, I’m rather sure Hermione’s parents…”

“ _Bastards_ , utter bastards,” Sirius interjected hotly.

“…had the wrong idea all these years. About you and I that is,” Remus concluded morosely.

“To be fair, we did give it a try back when we were both in school,”

“Worst ten minutes of my life,” Remus informed him. “You’re a terrible kisser. I have absolutely no idea what all these dates of yours see in you,”

“Says Mr. Too-Much-Tongue. My point is, you were fantastic with Harry,” Sirius pressed on. “You’ll be just fine with…little _Sirius_ , I want to say,”

“No,” Remus choked out a laugh. “No, really… _not_. You’re off your nut if you think I’m naming my son after you,”

The other man’s smile turned into a fond smirk as he turned towards the milling guests. “You know…she used to have quite a crush on you,”

“Tonks?” Remus tried to grab the bartender’s attention. The dulcet tones of Chris-Bloody-Isaak began to drift softly from hidden overhead speakers. The singer crooned nauseatingly about how horrible it felt, to fall in love with someone who was most certainly going to break his heart. “Yes, my wife once harboured some form of affection for me. Shocking, I know,”

“I’m talking about Hermione,” Sirius snorted, before he took another sip from his glass.

“You’re drunk,”

“No, seriously. We all found it very adorable, although personally, I thought it very confusing. I mean, there I was, all tall, dark, handsome…”

“…and delusional,” Remus finally caught the bartender’s attention. Frantically, he gestured that he needed something stronger than beer.

“Fine, don’t believe me,” Sirius shrugged. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go threaten the groom,”

Remus rubbed tiredly at his forehead. “And why would you want to do such a thing?”

“Well, someone has to,” Sirius said matter-of-factly. “She’s one of ours, especially these days. The truth is, I like that bugger she’s gone and married about as much as you do. Which is to say, I hate his guts,”

“She doesn’t need more _pseudo_ -family. She’s got Molly for that, and the bloody twins who have made it their personal mission to glare at Cormac all night. What Hermione needs right now, is _friends_ ,”

Dark eyes regarded Remus thoughtfully. Draining his glass, Sirius set his empty tumbler down.

“Fine. Fine, you’ve got a point,” the man sighed at last.

Remus smiled half-heartedly as he received a full glass of Writer’s Tears on the rocks. Turning his gaze towards Tonks, he frowned and said, “If you’ll excuse me, my pregnant wife is trying to sneak some unpasteurised cheese into her diet. I have to go run an intervention,”

Patting Sirius’s shoulder, Remus sauntered off towards the mother of his unborn child.

***  
“It was such a lovely ceremony,” Molly’s bottom lip quivered. Arthur nodded slowly, albeit reluctantly.

“The vows were quite touching,” Tonks said lamely. “They were very…traditional,”

“Yes… _traditional_. That bit about obedience was…very…um… _classic_? Is that the word I’m seeking?” Bill curled an arm around his wife’s shoulders. The French woman cast everyone dubious looks, as if trying to understand all that wasn’t being spoken aloud. “It would have been nice if they picked a better DJ. All this sappy shite is making my ears bleed,”

On the dance floor, the newly married couple swayed slowly to the depressing rhythm of Adele. The bride lips were still twisted into the shape of that weird, fixed smile which Remus didn’t recognize.

“It’s not so bad,” Remus found himself saying.

“She wanted a classical quartet,” Ron added quite unhelpfully.

“This isn’t bad,” he repeated staunchly. “I mean, who doesn’t love Adele?”

 

***  
By eight in the evening, Tonks was ready to leave.

Even at four months, the pregnancy was proving to be quite a trial for the typically tough policewoman. Every day, she found herself suffering from yet another ache in her body that hadn’t been there before. Nausea and dizziness overtook her constantly, preventing her from partaking in field duty. Consequently, she had become confined to her to desk in the middle of a crowded office, which left her restless and frustrated almost all of the time.

“I’m sorry,” she sounded miserable as she pushed away her sticky hair. The two of them were seated at a random, abandoned table on the edge of the temporary dance floor. “You don’t have to come with me. You should stay, have a few more drinks with the lads. Keep Harry from overdoing it on the Scotch,”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Remus chided, reaching over to grasp at her hand as he shifted on his uncomfortable chair. “As if I’m going to send you off in a taxi all on your own, you silly woman,”

“But the party’s only just getting started,” Tonks pointed out quite reasonably. “I mean, look at Ron, he’s finally looking excited!”

“Yes, a sloshed Ron is exactly my idea of pleasant company,” Remus shook his head. “Tonks, it’s a Thursday night, and I’m surrounded by a bevy of obnoxious strangers. This place is essentially the ninth circle of hell as far as I’m concerned,”

“Fine,” she twisted her lips apologetically. “You should say goodnight to Hermione at least. The poor girl looks exhausted. I would walk over but my feet hurt,”

“She’s fine,” Remus looked over at the bride.

The first dance between husband and wife was long over, and now, the bride stood off to one side, looking just that teeniest bit lost. For the first time since the reception started, she was no longer wearing that creepy, weird expression on her face that made it appear as though someone was coercing her into displaying some form of good cheer.

“I’ll be right back,”

Kissing a slightly greenish Tonks on her clammy cheek, he straightened up and picked his way through the crowd to get to Hermione’s side.

A few feet away from the bride, Remus slowed his steps and allowed himself to gaze at the young woman in open admiration.

Hermione’s gown was a simple satin affair, empire-waisted and hemmed with bits of lace and ribbon. With her elbow-length ivory gloves, and several seed-pearl pins stuck tastefully throughout her riotous chestnut curls, Hermione resembled nothing so much as a character who had wandered out of a Jane Austen novel.

Somehow, in the seven years since he had first met her, Hermione had grown from a gawky, bossy girl, into a striking, confident woman. Looking at her now, Remus simply couldn’t understand how he had missed such a monumental change. Of course, years spent conversing and laughing together had likely blinded him to certain things as they occurred right under his nose.

“Hello,” he greeted stupidly as she turned towards him.

“Remus,” She smiled at him. It was a real smile this time, one he recognized, and which flooded him with strange relief. “Are you and Tonks enjoying yourself?”

“Oh yes,” he nodded, lying. “This is a lovely reception. And the ceremony was…”

“Dry?” Hermione supplied. Under the dim light of the overhanging lamps, her dark eyes were hard to read, though her smile never wavered. “I apologize, I meant to come around to say hello, but the McLaggen guest list is quite extensive…”

“You shouldn’t have to apologize on your wedding day,” Remus pointed out gently. “You look beautiful by the way, though I assume I can’t possibly be the first to tell you such a thing tonight,”

“Thank you,” There was a touch of wistfulness her expression as she said this.

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly, placing a concerned hand on her shoulder.

“I’m fine,” she shook her head. “I just wish…I wish my parents were here, that’s all,”

Not for the first time in six months, Remus silently cursed the Grangers.

While it was true that he wasn’t clear on what had transpired exactly between Hermione and her parents, he found it despicable, how easily her Mum and Dad had cut their daughter from their lives. A lot of it, he knew, had to do with the man Hermione had chosen to marry…

Regardless of what that big-headed wanker was like however, the fact that that Robert and Emma Granger hadn’t bothered to attend their only daughter’s _wedding_ was infinitely more heinous to Remus, than any crime McLaggen might possibly have committed in offence.

Carefully, Remus squeezed at Hermione’s lace-covered shoulder. “We’re all here for you. You have all the support we can offer,”

“Oh please,” Hermione said dryly. “Don’t think I’m unaware what everyone’s been saying,”

Withdrawing his hand, Remus tugged at his sandy hair before settling a loose grip at the nape of his neck. Grey eyes lingered on Sirius, Harry, the Weasleys…

“Some of us are very bad at expressing how much we care about you,” he said at last. “But you should understand that it’s only because we’re all essentially family,”

“No,” Hermione shook her head quite firmly. “That’s not true at all,”

As much as he wanted to protest, Remus knew that Hermione wasn’t wrong in her succinct and literal surmise. Despite her undisputedly close friendships with most members of their incestuous little group, in many ways, the young woman was very much, still an outsider.

Unsurprising, considering that she had only become absorbed into their small band of misfits seven years ago…which certainly seemed like a lot, until those years were measured up against the extent to which everyone else was connected.

Sirius had the benefit of practically being Harry’s father - this made him a de-facto member of the Weasley family, given his godson’s relationship with Ginny. Remus himself, being married to his best friend’s cousin, lent him credence as far as familial bonds were concerned.

It was only Hermione who wasn’t actually connected to any of them through any of the convoluted relationships they had formed.

For all of a moment, Remus found himself panicking at the prospect of the woman before him drifting away like a floating leaf in the wake of someone else’s ocean. A very obnoxious, very condescending ocean.

“Fine,” he admitted, hiding his unease. “But I hope you know how very important you are to all of us,”

“Please don’t think I’m not grateful that we’re not family,” Hermione clarified. “None of you might approve of this marriage but - oh don’t make that face at me Remus Lupin, I’m not stupid - but at least you showed up, and that means everything to me. I couldn’t have asked for better friends,”

There was a bitterness in that sentiment which made Remus’s heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

“I actually came over to say our farewells for the night,” he said softly, wondering how appropriate it would be to wrap his arms around the bride. “Tonks isn’t feeling very well. But if you need, I could stay. We could…”

Hermione placed her hands on her hips, suddenly back to her normal, bossy self. She was neither the radiant bride she’d been playing at all day, nor was she the slightly jaded woman he had only just been speaking with.

“Don’t you dare. You do whatever it is your pregnant wife wants,” she informed him archly. “I’ll come over and say goodnight to the both of you,”

“Whatever you say boss,” Remus grinned crookedly. Before the younger woman could start towards Tonks, he reached out once more and grasped lightly at her forearm. “Hermione, if you need a friend…you do know I will always be here for you,”

“There are few things in this life I can count on, and you’ve been one of them for quite some time now Remus,” she nodded earnestly up at him.

Feeling both embarrassed and pleased at the same time, he allowed Hermione to lead the way back to his wife.

***

Back in the quiet of their hotel room, Tonks groaned in relief as she removed her swollen feet from her tight shoes.

“I’ll run you a bath,” Remus said helpfully, hurrying towards the bathroom.

“Stop,” she said quietly. “Hold on a second,”

He paused.

“I’m sorry,” she continued, rubbing at her feet. For whatever reason, his wife seemed disinclined to look him in the eye.

“Sorry? For what?” Remus asked, bewildered.

Tonks gestured limply between them. “This marriage,”

“Dora…” irritation began to flare in his chest.

“No, don’t…don’t let’s lie to each other,” Tonks sighed. “I was watching you tonight…I saw at last, all the things I’ve been trying to pretend away,”

“For fuck’s sake Dora,” Remus said sharply. “I insisted on us getting married because it’s the right thing to do. You’re about to have my baby,”

“You would still have been the father of that baby, whether or not we got married,” she pointed out. “I would never have denied either you nor my child such a thing,”

“Why the hell did you agree to marry me then?” he demanded.

“You _know_ why,” she told him quite frankly as she rose to her feet. “I was in love with you. When you proposed, I fooled myself into thinking…”

Abruptly, she stopped speaking. Suddenly, Remus found that _he_ was the one who couldn’t look his wife in the eye.

“Fine. So let’s say this marriage was a mistake,” he gritted out harshly into the overwhelming silence. Determinedly, he stalked over to the minibar tucked away under the television stand. “Shall we file for a separation? Is _that_ what you want?”

“I…” she faltered.

Flinging open the plywood cabinet, Remus snatched at a miniaturized Glenfiddich.

“Fuck it,” Tonks rubbed at her eyes. “Just ignore me. It’s my bloody hormones. I’ll run my own fucking bath,”

Brushing clumsily past Remus, she disappeared into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her. A minute later, he could hear the sound of faucets going…

Loud as the rush of water was, the noise wasn’t quite enough to drown out the sound of her muffled sobbing.

Feeling like an utter arsehole, Remus uncapped the scotch in his hands and drank it directly from the small glass bottle.


	2. Prologue Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: My other story is heavy on the Remus pain; this one is heavy on the Hermione angst...(on top of Remus angst)

**Prologue Part 2**

**Autumn, Three Years Prior**

Hermione’s inbox was full, and she was so exhausted she could barely see straight. It was five in the evening, but her work wasn’t halfway done. Outside, a cold autumnal wind blew relentlessly through the corridors of the city, sweeping aside all traces of summer in its wake.

Before the woman could sink further into a mire of despair, her mobile phone began to trill insistently.

“Are you planning on answering that?” Cedric demanded half-irritatedly, sipping at his cup of coffee from two desks away.

“I don’t know,” Hermione looked blankly at her iPhone. No one called anyone anymore; all anyone ever did was text.

“Well, either set your phone to silent, or take the call,” Cedric grumbled good-naturedly. “I’m trying to pretend I’m having relaxing moment for god’s sake,”

Making a face at her Team Lead, Hermione grabbed her phone and leaned back in her chair.

Half a minute later, she was staring out the large window behind her, looking altogether stunned as she took in what Harry was saying over the phone. All thoughts on work, and a frustrating commute home had receded into so much white noise at the back of her mind.

“Is he alright?” she asked immediately, when her best friend stopped to take a breath.

“He’s…in shock I think,” Harry said quietly. “Sirius isn’t any better,”

“Shit,” Hermione blinked back her tears.

“‘Mione, I think we’re going to need your help,” Harry sounded ragged. “I would ask Molly, but I don’t think Remus needs…well, you know how she gets. Ginny’s still away on business, but she’ll be flying home in two days. Until then, there’s a mountain of papers to sort out, bills to pay…”

“Of course I’ll help,” she wiped at her damp cheeks. Dispassionately, she observed as pedestrians hurried away from a neighbouring office tower. Everyone had their shoulders hunched inwards against the chill of the rising wind, as if that simple act alone would somehow protect them from the coming freeze.

“Thank you,” Harry rasped gratefully. “Poor Remus. I can’t bear to think what he’s going through right now,”

“No, I can’t either,” Hermione began to rotate her Herman Miller chair back to face her monitor. “I’ll see you in a half-hour,”

“Alright,”

Ending the call, Hermione stared bleakly and unseeingly at her flat-screen monitor.

“Is everything alright?” Cedric was standing before her desk, peering worriedly down at her. His concern was apparent and sincere.

Taking in a deep breath, Hermione rose to her feet and began to pack up her belongings. “Not really no,”

“Oh,” Cedric paused. “Can I help?”

“St. Mungo’s wants to know why we’re not allowing validation-free fields on their website,” Hermione sighed. “And right now, I don’t have the energy to explain to them, that their own compliance documents set the necessary requirements,”

“That’s not really what I…” her Lead shuffled miserably. “Hermione, is everything alright?”

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” Hermione said gently, offering Cedric a small smile as she unplugged her MacBook and shoved it into a soft case. “I’ll be in tomorrow…but I have to warn you, I might be a bit distracted over the next week or so,”

“That bad then?” Cedric’s lips twisted in sympathy.

Pulling her massive purse up over her right shoulder, the woman managed to choke out, “I have a funeral to plan,”

Snapping his mouth shut, Cedric watched her leave without another word.

***

Cormac’s phone rang and rang. Just as she decided to end her attempts and simply text him, her husband finally deigned to answer.

“Everything alright?” was his first question.

“Yes,” Hermione said automatically, then thought better of her answer. “ _I’m_ alright at any rate. It’s…it’s Remus,”

“Oh?” his voice lost that tense note. Instead, it was replaced by what sounded like his usual indifference when it came to the subject of Remus Lupin. For whatever reason, Cormac never did warm up to her friend. “What about him?”

“Well,” she shut the heavy door of her Toyota. “The thing is…Tonks was admitted to the hospital this morning. There were complications with the baby,”

She breathed.

“The long and short of it is - she’s gone,”

“Gone?” Cormac asked blankly.

“Yes,”

“Fuck me,” her husband pronounced succinctly. “That’s…horrible.”

“Yes,” she repeated stupidly, brushing impatiently at her curls. Her hair was falling out of its braid, as it was always wont to do. “I’m on my way to Harry’s,”

“Harry’s? What for?” Cormac asked, sounding as if he still hadn’t quite processed the news. She didn’t blame him. They had only just seen Remus and Tonks the week before over dinner at Harry and Ginny’s.

Gathering her composure, Hermione gave her husband a quick summary of the situation. By the time she was done, and as she pressed the ignition button on her car, Cormac seemed more or less over his shock.

“Why you? Why can’t his wife help him? Or Ron?” he asked testily.

“I already told you,” Hermione reined in her own aggravation. “Ginny won’t be home for two days, and Ron’s lovely but he’s not really one for paperwork,”

“We had dinner plans,” Cormac protested.

“Are you…” Hermione blinked at her dash. “Are you serious?”

On the other side, Cormac grunted in a way that let her know he was being completely, deadly serious.

“I’m not doing this, not right now,” she informed him. “I have to go. I’ll see you later,”

He laughed shortly and angrily. “We were supposed to be meeting our new client for dinner tonight, it’s been in the works for weeks. This is _important_ Hermione, you know that. It’s Albus Dumbledore, the CEO of _fucking_ Wizard Entertainment,”

“Cormac, my friend’s wife just passed away,” Hermione gritted out. “I could care less if you were meeting sodding _Merlin_ himself. I’m afraid I won’t be able to play the role of arm-candy tonight,”

“Bloody hell Hermione, I thought when we got married, you would learn to put me…put _us_ first,”

Three months they had been married. In that short span of time, Hermione often found herself secretly wondering why she had imagined that exchanging vows might have improved the state of their relationship.

“I’ll…make it up to you,” she told him. “I have to go. I’m sorry,”

Knowing there would be a fight when she finally made it home, Hermione pressed the red button on her touch screen and threw the device onto the passenger seat. Leaning forwards, she rested her forehead on her steering wheel and took a few gulping breaths. When she felt calm enough, she leaned back and pushed down the handbrake, before pulling out of her parking space.

As she drove towards Harry’s, Hermione thought back to the first time she had ever met Remus.

She had been a girl of sixteen who had been invited to spend time with her schoolmates after class. Trailing on the heels of her newfound friends, Hermione had wondered anxiously at the wisdom of following a couple of boys she had known for only a few measly weeks, into the home of someone whom she had never met.

“He’s my Godfather’s best mate. He was best friends with my parents too, when they were all in school,” Harry assured cheerfully as they strolled down a residential street. Casually, he brushed his dark hair away from his green eyes.

Hermione carefully did not react. The reminder of Harry’s personal tragedy still horrified her. To lose _both_ his parents at once, all because of some idiot drunk driver behind the wheel of a green convertible…

Stoically, she comforted herself by remembering that from everything Harry himself had implied, he had been far too young to truly remember the loss of James and Lily Potter. Besides, it _sounded_ as if his childhood had been happy…so really, things couldn’t have been that dire for him growing up.

“My parents went to school with Remus too,” Ron piped up, breaking her train of thought. “Everyone in this neighbourhood, their parents know my parents, my parents know their great-aunts, and so on and so on. It’s all a bit incestuous to be honest. I’m going to need to procreate outside of these few streets if I want children that don’t look weird,”

Harry blushed furiously as Hermione hid a smile. Despite having known the boys for only a few weeks, it was obvious to her that her new bespectacled friend was head-over-heels for Ron’s baby sister.

Back then, she had only recently transferred into the same year as Harry and Ron, having spent most of her life studying abroad, within various international schools.

Thanks to adventurous parents who had chosen to ply their trade throughout Asia long before she was old enough to provide an opinion on such matters, Hermione had the dubious benefit of never having attended the same school for more than a few years at a time…or any school in England.

All her time in the Far East resulted in Hermione’s studies being just slightly out-of-sync with those of her current peers; as such, she was also a full year older than most of her classmates, and just a little more out of place than she otherwise might already have been.

The young woman was also far warier than most girls her age were.

“So I take it you’re _not_ luring me to my death right now? Or worse?” Hermione questioned bluntly. Years of warnings issued by her Mum and Dad echoed in her mind as they approached the front door of a small townhouse in an admittedly pleasant-looking neighbourhood.

Nothing about the place betrayed the possibility that the man who owned it might have a murder room in his cellar. Or a deep pit where he kept teenaged girls trapped.

To their credit, neither Harry nor Ron had offered her candy just before luring her out to an unmarked, windowless white van, so there was _that_.

“Only in the sense you’ll probably find yourself bored to death,” Ron informed her gravely. “He hasn’t got any game consoles, only books,”

“Oh,” she nodded, though she still hadn’t felt entirely convinced that she wasn’t about to get horribly murdered.

Swallowing her many misgivings, Hermione fought off the temptation to run away. Being the new girl in school meant she had very little in the way of companions. The two boys at her side had seemed the most willing out of all her classmates, to make room in their little duo for one more person.

The fact that she had a canister of pepper spray in her pocket also assured her that she had at least one form of protection.

Casting her an exasperated look, Harry unlocked the front door and ushered both herself and Ron into the house. “Trust me, you’ll like Remus,”

“Harry?” a voice called immediately.

“I brought some friends over if that’s alright,” Harry responded. “It’s just Ron. And a girl,”

Despite her nerves, Hermione rolled her eyes at the manner by which she had just been introduced.

“Girl? I was beginning to think you’d never discover them,”

The speaker - obviously Remus - materialised. He smirked at Harry as he hurried down a set of stairs and into the dim foyer. His sandy hair was tousled and wanted a trim; his features were honest and open.

“It’s not like that,” Harry blushed. “She’s a friend. She just transferred from some school in Singapore, or so she tells us,”

“You don’t look like you’re from Singapore. Which is what, in China?” the barefoot man quipped as he diverted his attention to Hermione.

Hermione distinctly remembered arching her eyebrows at him, offended on behalf of the place she had called home for the past three years. Before she could explain to him certain basic geographic facts, the man was already wearing an apologetic expression, clearly knowing he had said something particularly stupid.

“I know where Singapore is, I was trying to be funny,” he shook his head, abashed. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid my humour is a bit…it’s not…”

Remus ran flustered hands over his flushed face.

“I have this problem where I think I’m funny, but actually, I’m not,”

“You’re not so bad,” Hermione offered lamely as the corners of her lips tilted up.

Harry looked vaguely put-out at the realization that his presence had been forgotten. Clearing his throat, he waved vaguely, “Remus, this is Hermione. Hermione, this is Remus. He’s somewhere between an uncle, and a second Dad,”

“Oh,” Hermione blinked.

“No,” Remus interrupted, adopting a look of deep embarrassment. “Not like _that_. I just happen to watch Harry whenever Sirius is off on business, which is a lot. It’s an old joke. Besides, that git doesn’t deserve a man like me, and all _I_ have to offer,”

“How rude of me,” Hermione remembered her manners as she stuck her hand out to shake Remus’s own. “It’s very nice to meet you Mr. Lupin…”

“Likewise,” he looked relieved as he accepted her gesture of goodwill. Waving his three visitors away from his front door, he added, “But please _never_ call me Mr. Anything. My name’s Remus,”

Stepping into his sitting area, Hermione found herself feeling ridiculously comfortable almost immediately.

Comfortable and thrilled.

Considering the wall-to-wall bookshelves arranged in his parlour, the man must have owned a thousand books.

“Oh my word, this is amazing,” she blurted out as her eyes widened in delighted wonder.

“See Remus, we thought you might like her,” Ron chuckled, flopping down onto a nearby sofa. “She’s a nerd. And she sounds like she’s a hundred years old every time she opens her mouth, just like you,”

Ignoring Ron’s vaguely insulting description of her personality, Hermione drifted through the room. She ached terribly, with a desire to run her fingertips over the spines of every single tome in sight. Remus had a collection of books on just about every subject, ranging from science-fiction, fantasy, engineering, politics…

“So what you’re saying is that she’s _interesting_ ,” Remus retorted dryly.

“What do you do for work?” she asked, turning to him. “How do I get to live like this?”

“I don’t know if I ought to be handing out career advice,” he shrugged sheepishly. “I’m an independent web developer, which makes me a _poor_ nerd. I work on a contract-by-contract basis,”

“Is that why…”

“I’m home in the middle of the day on a Thursday?” he nodded. “It’s not always steady work, mind, but I have never liked the idea of being cooped up in an office,”

“But still, I think I’ve just figured out what I want to be when I grow up,” she told him quite earnestly.

Remus grinned widely and sincerely in answer, and Hermione found herself suddenly very much aware of the state of her curls, the creases on her shirt and most of all, the endearing dimples set into his cheeks.

“That’s great and all, this meeting of like-minds,” Harry spoke from where he had collapsed beside Ron, and where he was fiddling with at least three remote controls. “But can we focus on the present? Come on Hermione, we wanted to show you Battlestar Galactica. It’s that show we’ve been telling you about,”

Snapping herself out of her dazed state, Hermione directed a stern glare towards her schoolmates.

“I’m here to finish my homework and to make sure you boys did the same,” Her hands settled at her hips. “You’re not copying _my_ answers again,”

A small noise of annoyance emitted from Remus’s throat.

“Harry, not doing your homework’s one thing, but cheating’s a bit low,”

“It’s not cheating,” Harry groaned. “See, all I do is I check my answers against ‘Mione’s…it’s not my fault she’s always got the right ones,”

“Better you than me dealing with this nonsense I suppose,” Remus shrugged at her in amused exasperation. As he turned to leave the room, he paused, flashing her yet another devastating smile. “Hermione, it was very nice to meet you. Help yourself to anything at all in my library…if Harry gives you any trouble, I’ve got Sirius’s phone number. Ron on the other hand, his mother’s given everyone in the neighbourhood leave to smack him upside the head, so do feel free,”

“It’s true,” Ron nodded sadly. “Mum did say that,”

Nodding dumbly, the sixteen-year-old version of Hermione settled down beside her two sulking classmates.

In the present, Hermione pulled into Harry’s driveway, wondering where those children they used to be had disappeared off to. Or fuck, what happened to her old ambitions. On her left hand, her wedding band gleamed under the sodium light of the streetlights. In her backseat, her laptop waited in her bag, filling up, she knew, with all sorts of emails she wasn’t in the mood to answer.

At home, she had a husband who no doubt, was going to tear her a new one the moment she walked through the front door, and who had insisted that they get rid of all except _one_ bookshelf.

All because Cormac’s Billiard’s table had to go _somewhere_ in that spare room of theirs.

Grabbing her iPhone from the passenger seat, Hermione shoved aside her own neurosis and climbed out of her car. Walking slowly up a short pathway, Harry’s front door opened before she even reached it.

Her best friend emerged barefoot into the cold night.

“You’re going to freeze to death if you don’t put on some socks,” she chided as she drew him into a tight hug nonetheless, before dragging him indoors. “Ginny will kill me if anything happened to you,”

That barefoot habit, she knew, was something he had acquired from Remus rather than Sirius.

“Nah,” Harry shook his head. “She knows I’m an idiot,”

“True love triumphs every time I suppose,” she smiled wanly. “Are you ok?

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “I was just getting ready to go to over to Sirius’s place…Remus is over there. I think my Godfather doesn’t want Remus alone right now, in that house all by himself,”

“Shit,” Hermione squeezed her eyes shut as she leaned against the doorframe, waiting on Harry as he pulled on his boots. “Didn’t the nursery just get finished a few days ago?”

Pain-filled green eyes looked up at her. “Yeah,”

They had all joked over the past eight months that this was the closest thing to a baby cousin Harry was ever going to have. Now, in retrospect, those words were taking on a tragic sheen.

“He’ll be alright,” Hermione said with a confidence she didn’t feel.

“I hope so,” Harry shrugged, dropping his gaze as he finished tying his shoelaces. “I think the hard part’s not even here yet,”

“Do Molly and the rest…do they know yet?” she asked gingerly.

“Ron does, but I told him to keep the news to himself,” Harry straightened up and grabbed his coat off a hook. “At least for a few days, anyway. I love Molly, I do, but…”

“Say no more,” Hermione reached out and hugged Harry again. “I was only trying to work out if we should pick up something to eat on our way over. If Molly knew, she’d have brought a feast over by now,”

“She’s lovely for that sort of thing,” Harry said quietly.

Squeezing her best friend tightly, Hermione wished with all her heart she knew the right words to take his anxiety away.

***

The smell of greasy fast food always made her just a little queasy, but in the present, Hermione felt as if her guts were turning themselves inside out.

“Thank you,” Sirius told her quite sincerely as they approached the galley kitchen placed at the other end of the loft. Remus sat with his back facing them, slouched over the wide stainless steel island which dominated the space.

The place Sirius currently occupied was far smaller than the gloomy old townhouse where Harry had spent his childhood years. Smaller, but far more posh, Hermione reflected as she treaded across polished concrete floors. Solid wooden beams lined the ceiling, lending the space a harsh, industrial aesthetic which the woman had only ever seen in design magazines.

“Sorry we didn’t pick up anything healthier, or better,” she apologized as she moved to stand beside Remus.

When first she stepped into the loft, Hermione had flung her arms around Sirius’s neck. Harry’s Godfather had responded by clinging on to her for dear life. Scrubbing at her face as she pulled away, she peered at him in concern.

“I’ll be fine,” he had said gruffly, running a tired hand over his drawn features.

Now, in front of a man who had only just lost his wife and his unborn child, for whatever reason, Hermione hesitated against doing exactly the same for him as she had done for Sirius.

Carefully, the young woman reached out and placed her left hand on his shoulder.

“Hi,” she murmured softly.

“Hello,” he replied dully, nursing hopelessly at his tumbler of whiskey.

“Remus…” she started. “I’m so sorry,”

Silence greeted her heartfelt sentiment, though she supposed that was only to be expected. Close by, Sirius and Harry, who had been watching the interaction closely, cast each other looks of abject concern.

Tearing up, Hermione squeezed Remus’s shoulder and made to leave him alone. Before she could take a step away from him however, his hand fell firmly upon her own, keeping her rooted in place.

Without warning, Remus turned towards Hermione and tugged at her so that his face was buried into her right shoulder. Without an ounce of self-consciousness, his body began to shake as sobs tore brutally out of his chest.

There was no second-guessing on her part after that, as Hermione enfolded Remus into her tight embrace. Clutching at his shoulders, she pressed her mouth into his hair and tried with all her might to give him all comfort she could afford, through mere touch alone.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured uselessly after a while. “I’m so sorry,”

***

It was past midnight by the time Hermione started binning cardboard containers, half-eaten burgers and grease-stained bags. Sirius and Harry sat together, polishing off of a bottle of Glenrothes; Remus himself had already disappeared into Sirius’s spare room, locking the door behind him.

Harry’s Godfather poured for her, a generous tot of the vile stuff he was drinking.

“I’m driving,” Hermione reminded him. “And I’ve got an important meeting in the morning,”

“Right,” he looked embarrassed. “Sometimes I forget you’re all grown-up and married and all that rot,”

The woman said nothing as she tried not to think of her husband, or of the explosive row that occurred over the phone hours ago. All her efforts were useless however. Already, she found herself dreading the moment she had to leave the loft, because she knew what awaited her at home.

“You’re a good woman. Not least because you’re here, helping at a time like this,” Sirius intoned sincerely over her internal monologue. He didn’t sound very drunk at all, though that didn’t surprise Hermione. Breaching forty had yet to slow Harry’s Godfather down when it came to certain vices.

If she had to guess, raising Harry had forced Sirius into a paternal role, which had demanded of him a level of maturity most of his peers would never have had to worry themselves over, back in their early-twenties. By comparison, for all his level-headedness, Remus had spent much of _his_ youth drifting through life, seeking for himself a vocation that wouldn’t bore him to death.

Now that Harry was all grown-up, Sirius spent the majority of his time outside of work dating, drinking and being the constant life of one party or another. He did it with the voraciousness of a man who had been starved, and was just now discovering the hedonistic buffet which life itself was capable of offering.

Rinsing her hands under Sirius’s kitchen faucet, Hermione stifled a yawn as she said, “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m happy to help,”

“Right,” Sirius nodded. “I don’t want you to overwork yourself, I know how busy you get. Honestly, Harry and I can manage just fine…”

“Sirius,” Hermione interjected as she dried her hands. “It’s no trouble. Harry and I will start going over the…the logistics tomorrow. If you really want me to, I’ll back off, but I get the feeling you’re going to have your hands full with…”

Not very subtly, she nodded towards a closed door at the other end of the loft.

“I don’t know,” Sirius said solemnly. His eyes were tinged with red. “I don’t know that I’m actually able to provide the support he needs right now,”

Hermione summoned her courage and asked “Are you going to be alright? I know you and Tonks were very close,”

The man squeezed his eyes shut, and answered, “I have to be alright. It’s not really a choice,”

Circling the kitchen island, Hermione dropped a kiss to Sirius's forehead and held him tight. Twisting his body, the man buried his grief-ravaged face in her curls as he released a dry sob.

“Thank you,” he rasped.

Tightening her hold on him, Hermione stroked at his heaving back. After a few seconds, Harry joined them in a group hug.

“Harry, do you need a ride home?” she asked eventually, wondering if that empty feeling in her chest would ever recede.

Shaking his head, her old schoolmate disentangled himself and wiped at his nose with the back of his right hand.

“I’ll sleep on the futon I think,” Harry turned towards his Godfather. “If you’ll have me anyway,”

“You never had to ask,” Sirius squeezed his shoulder.

Nodding miserably, Hermione turned her gaze towards the guest bedroom for a brief moment. Reaching reluctantly for her bag, she dropped one last kiss to Sirius and Harry’s cheek, before she made for the front door.

***

Stepping into her own house, Hermione froze in her steps as she caught the unmistakable sound of Cormac’s snores, as they drifted towards her from their bedroom.

Carefully setting her bag down by the door, the woman took off her heels and proceeded towards the sofa. Without bothering to strip off her work clothes, Hermione lay down upon the stiff cushions and did her best to make herself comfortable.

Drifting off to sleep, she wondered how much trouble she would have with her hair in the morning, especially considering how every last curl had escaped their flimsy bonds over the course of the night.

A fat, grey creature leapt up beside her, balancing on careful paws as it approached to sniff affectionately at her face.

“Hello Pepper,” she whispered, tugging at her cat so the beast lay on its side. Purring contentedly, the cat rested its head in the crook of her arm.

***  
In the morning, she awoke to find Cormac glaring furiously from the armchair set across from the sofa upon which she was sprawled.

God but she had always hated that coral coloured piece of furniture her husband was currently perched upon.

Sighing, Hermione unfolded her aching body, preparing to be educated on all the ways she had already failed as a wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: There is a very good reason why Hermione's cat is named 'Pepper'. Assuming this doesn't lose every last reader by chapter I dunno, 8, you'll see why...


	3. The Separation: Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've already warned but just in case...this is a very Hermione centric fic though Remus will certainly have his say eventually...

**Hermione**

Her bones and muscles screamed at her, each time she so much as twitched. 

Which was unfair. 

At only twenty-six, she really shouldn’t have to suffer like this. Up till three, maybe even two years ago, bodily aches were something that happened to other people. Perhaps it was time for her to seriously consider that gym membership; or perhaps she ought to eat better, and drink less.

Leaning back in her swivel chair, Hermione’s foot caught the straps of her massive duffel bag. Instinctively, she kicked out in annoyance. 

That one simple gesture made everything hurt _that_ much more.

“I’ve just sent you that file for St. Mungo's. The one you asked me to proof,” Colin Creevey called out from her old seat by the window. 

From her current place tucked into the corner of their open-concept office, Hermione acknowledged the Junior Intern with a small, distracted wave.

Colin gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, which made Hermione feel just the tiniest bit guilty for the way she was exploiting the unpaid intern. Checking documents for typos and grammatical errors…Colin was basically a glorified version of Microsoft Word. 

Gratefully, her mind flashed to Cedric who actually gave her a paid junior role five years ago, despite the fact that she had been fresh out of school with very little to show in way of work experience. Not only that, but he had her working on actual requirement documentation from her very first day on the job. 

Good old Cedric, the best Lead anyone could ever have asked for. The man used to bring in home-baked muffins…

“Granger, you do realize you’ve attached a blank file to this email you’ve just sent me?” her current manager Severus drawled from across the room. 

Of course, Cedric simply had to up and resign a year ago, because he could no longer take another day working under the man who now controlled _her_ fate in the workplace.

For the rest of her life, Hermione doubted that she would ever forgive Cedric for such a horrendous betrayal.

“Granger, are you even paying attention?” 

Severus never called her by her first name. In all fairness however, he never called _anyone_ by their first name. 

Assumedly, it was all part of some twisted strategy he had come up with over the years, in a concentrated effort to dehumanize every last one of his employees and teammates. Perhaps the man thought that if he treated everyone like machines, then they would all also _function_ like machines. 

According to Severus, computers never grew tired, and they never made mistakes.

There was a bug in that man’s code, but far be it from Hermione to understand the highly effective habits of the lonely and miserable _wankers_ of the world. 

“My apologies,” she said aloud, conceding silently and sullenly that she had indeed sent Severus the wrong document. Stifling a yawn as she corrected her mistake, Hermione wondered if a fifth cup of coffee would improve her day. 

“You look like you’re in pain,” Luna observed as she passed Hermione’s desk.

“That would be because I _am_ in pain,” Hermione admitted with a wince as she attempted a poor excuse of a stretch.

“I have this great acupuncturist I go to once a month,” Luna told her, smiling that slightly dreamy smile of hers. “I can fetch you his card if you want,”

Bloody Luna and her acupuncturists, her naturopaths and her homeopaths. How many times had Hermione found herself tempted to inform the other woman that all these so-called ‘professionals' were no-good crooks and con artists, who made it their life’s mission to steal the hard-earned money of good, honest folks?

“That would be very nice,” Hermione replied with a smile, reminding herself that her colleague was only attempting to be helpful. No one in the office had a bigger heart that Luna Lovegood, never mind her blatant eccentricities.

“Acupuncturist?” Severus sneered from where he had been eavesdropping. “Lovegood, why don’t you just set all your money on fire? That will have just about the same effect on your health. Granger, I hope you’re not actually thinking about getting dirty needles stuck all over your skin,”

Without missing a beat, Hermione’s smile widened; brightly, she said, “I’ll take that card now Luna, if you have it,” 

An exasperated snort emanated from the other side of the office. Evidently, Severus Snape was challenged by simple everyday concepts, such as ‘tact’ and ‘courtesy’.

“I just slacked you Neville’s website,” Luna looked up from her Samsung smartphone in an impressive display of feigned ignorance against their Manager’s condescension. Leaning down, she murmured in a slightly less distant tone, “Neville’s actually a great masseuse - and he makes his own herbal oils which smell _heavenly_. I can only assume aromatherapy massages are a little more, you know…your _thing_ ,”

“Oh my god, you have no idea how much I need a massage. _Thank you_ ,” Hermione sighed with sincere gratitude. Pasting on her familiar, dreamy smile, Luna swept off towards her desk, humming tunelessly as she went. 

Grinning at her fellow Business Analyst’s subtle defiance in the face of Severus’s abrasive demeanour, Hermione hummed to herself as she picked up her iPhone. To her shock, she found that the time was well was past six p.m.. Briefly and seriously, she debated the merits of staying another hour, if only to answer a few more emails…

 _Fuck it_ , she thought. She had already put in about fifty-two hours of work for the week, and really, it was Friday. Shooting an anxious Colin a exhausted smile, she told the waiting intern, “I’ll look over your notes over the weekend,” 

“Cool,” he nodded enthusiastically. “If you need to talk it through, please don’t worry about giving me a ring over the weekend, or sending me an email or…”

“Thanks Col,” her smile turned a little brittle. Hunched over his own laptop like a well-dressed bat, Severus snorted again. 

Bending over with a groan, Hermione grabbed her multiple bags and made for the car park.

***

Despite Molly Weasley’s overtly smothering tendencies, Arthur, Ron’s long suffering father, very recently insisted that it was time his youngest son moved out of his childhood bedroom. 

Actually, he wanted Ron out of his home, period. 

The words Arthur had chosen included the phrase, 

“It’s time you learned to stand on your own damned feet for once”. 

According to his father, Ron’s choice to pursue a Ph.D in Romance Studies did not in the end, entitle him to a rent-free existence under his parent’s roof for yet another year. 

“You’re twenty-five for god’s sake!” Arthur had roared over a family dinner two months prior. “When _I_ was your age, I was starting a family, not faffing about like an overprivileged brat,”

“The economy’s a bit shite at the moment,” Ron had - apparently - retorted. “In case you didn’t notice, your generation more or less ruined it for the rest of us,”

Arthur replied, “ _Ginny’s_ got a family of her own and she’s a year younger than you are. In fact, she’s got both family and career!”

Unfortunately, that outburst earned Arthur two weeks of Molly’s punishing silence. To the brave man’s credit, he did not in the end, bend to the whims of his furious wife. 

Very soon after Arthur’s stoic pronouncement, Ron announced his intention to move in with his girlfriend of six months, Lavender Brown. The other woman had pounced on the idea with such undisguised glee, Hermione had thought her ears might never stop ringing from the blonde’s shrill shrieks of joy, the day the move was announced.

Presently, standing in the middle of Ron’s cluttered living room, Hermione watched in dismal fascination as her best friend gestured sheepishly at his futon.

“It’s not glamorous but it’s very comfortable. I’ve slept on it myself a few nights last week. It’s really not terrible,”

Wisely, she chose to ignore the last part of Ron’s rather revealing statement.

“After the past two nights spent sleeping on my extremely uncomfortable sofa - which doesn’t even fold out, mind you - this futon looks _phenomenally_ welcome,” Hermione collapsed heavily upon thick cushions with a sigh of pure pleasure. Her muscles screamed in relief, though her back continued to throb. 

Still, the majority of the pain she was still experiencing was thankfully fading away into nothing more than a bad memory.

Ron hesitated. After a moment, he sat down beside her and asked, “Why the hell didn’t _McLaggen_ take the sofa?”

Hermione answered tiredly, “Since I’m the one asking for a separation, it seemed like the right thing to do. The fair thing, at any rate,”

“Yes, but,” Ron sounded aggrieved on her behalf. “He should have offered. Please tell me he at least offered,”

Hermione said nothing, choosing instead to become very interested in a scrap of thread hanging from her blouse.

“He’s such a arsehole,” Ron shook his head. “I don’t know what you ever saw in him. Do you need me to hit him? Because I’ll do it you know, I really will,”

Scowling, Hermione ran through several responses in her head. Instead of offering any of them to Ron, she bit back her scathing words.

“Lay off Won-Won,” Lavender called from the kitchen. “Though I have to say ‘Mione, McLaggen is a complete wanker who doesn’t deserve someone as wonderful as you. I honestly hope he dies alone,”

The blonde bombshell materialized with three Heinekens in her hands, one of which was shoved under Hermione’s nose. 

Without thinking, Hermione reached up to accept the proffered beverage, only to find herself greeted by a horrified gasp. Glancing upwards, she caught Lavender’s wide-eyed look of utter distress.

“Where is your engagement ring? And your wedding ring?” the other woman demanded. 

“I gave them back to Cormac,” Hermione brazenly snatched her drink away from Lavender’s tight grasp. There was no way in hell she was having this conversation without some liquid fortitude to see her through. “Again, I was the one who called the whole thing off. It didn’t feel right keeping those rings,”

“Oh Hermione!” Lavender sounded genuinely upset as she folded down upon the futon’s armrest. Seated between his girlfriend and his best friend, Ron affected an air of desperate confusion. “You never give the rings back,”

“I’ll try to remember that the next time I file for a divorce,” Hermione took a long gulp of her Heineken. Already, she found herself regretting not going to Harry’s place instead. 

So what if Harry had two young infants in the house? Babies had to be less annoying than Lavender, because babies didn’t ask all sorts of uncomfortable questions.

“Do you want to talk about…you know…stuff?” Ron asked timidly, gulping at his own bottle of liquid fortitude. 

“Not really,” Hermione shook her head. “Right now, all I want is a good night’s rest…I haven’t been sleeping properly. Cormac’s been a horrible housemate the last few days…he kept crying every night. When he wasn’t crying, he was yelling…”

“Christ,” Ron grimaced. “That sounds awful. Crying though? Honestly, what a…”

“Don’t,” Hermione rubbed at her forehead. “Just…don’t.”

“We’re going out to meet up with some people for a couple of pints,” Lavender patted Hermione’s brown curls, a gesture which set the exhausted woman’s teeth on edge. “Would you like to come with us?”

“It might do you some good,” Ron nodded, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “Going out with people will take your mind off things. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet a nice bloke…”

“I _just_ left my husband,” Hermione wondered if she had enough money left in her bank account to book a hotel room until she found a new place to live. 

“Ron’s got a point. You should come out with us. It’ll take your mind off things for a little while,” Lavender said thoughtfully. “Besides, it doesn’t feel right leaving you here, all alone, considering…well, _everything_ ,”

“The both of you are being extremely kind,” Hermione sighed. “Perhaps we can all go out for a drink tomorrow? I just…I need a night to myself if that’s alright,”

“Tomorrow night it is,” Lavender said decisively. “Maybe we could go out to that new pub I’ve been dying to try. Merchant and Mills, I think it’s called…”

Conversation began to drift away from the state of her wedded life or lack thereof. To Hermione’s eternal gratitude, the aimless trajectory of their discussion didn’t last very long. 

The moment they were finished with their beers, the couple stood up and prepared to leave. Pressing an affectionate kiss to her hair, Ron cast Hermione a critical once-over and asked once more, “Are you sure you don’t want to come? I could hang back. I feel like you could really use a friend right about now,”

Observing the dark frown marring Lavender’s devastatingly pretty face, Hermione recalled too late, that there was a specific reason why she shouldn’t have made Ron’s flat her refuge of choice. 

Before her best friend had found himself a girlfriend, it might not have been such a problem. Now however…now everything was different.

Lavender used to despise the very sight of Hermione, simply because she had gone out with Ron for a pathetic span of five measly months, back when they had both been too young to understand that bickering and sexual tension did not a solid foundation make. 

Even now, the other woman bore her presence for the sake of the man seated between them.

“No,” Hermione shook her head. “I just want to watch some television and fall asleep,”

Unsubtle jealousy faded from Lavender’s brow, only to be replaced by pity, the sight of which made Hermione even more depressed than she already felt.

When at last the happy couple departed, heaving a sigh of relief, Hermione leaned back on the laid-out futon and switched on the television. 

Flipping through several channels, she eventually settled on an exuberant Korean cooking competition. The contestants were all yelling at each other in a language she didn’t understand, but every one of them seemed extremely, inordinately happy.

Resting the remote control carefully at her side, without quite meaning to, Hermione burst into uncontrollable tears.


	4. The Separation: Chapter 2

**Hermione**

Around two in the morning, the young woman started awake to the sound of giggling and loud whispers over by the front door.

“Shhh,” Lavender chastised as she knocked over a stack of boxes. “Remember Hermione’s here,”

“Right, right,” Ron answered as he slammed the door shut.

Soft, smacking noises ensued. For a split second, Hermione wondered if she ought to inform the kissing couple that they had a fully conscious audience. Deciding it would be far too weird to announce her very lucid presence, the woman bit her lip and waited for them to go to bed.

No such luck, however.

Ron and Lavender proceeded into the kitchen directly behind Hermione’s temporary bed, whereupon they opened two new bottles of beer and proceeded to chat drunkenly about the night’s events using what they fondly believed to be their inside voices.

After what felt like an hour, the two of them finally switched off the bright light, and stumbled off to bed.

Listening to the sounds of them falling asleep through their open bedroom door, Hermione did her best not to start tearing up again, though this time she longed to sob in frustration. Picking up her mobile phone, she set a reminder for herself to purchase a decent set of earplugs.

Slapping an arm over her eyes, Hermione tried not to miss poor Pepper. Doubtlessly, her cat was wandering through the house, meowing for her missing mistress.

 

***

Bright sunlight streamed in through uncovered windows, dragging Hermione back into the waking world. Blinking groggily, she stared blearily off into space for a full minute, wondering how it was humanly possible to feel so exhausted. Thankfully, it was Saturday, which meant she could take her sweet time waking up.

Snagging her laptop from her bag beside her, she powered it on, before realizing that she never did obtain Ron and Lavender’s WiFi password. Digging for her smartphone, she thought to tether her computer to her smartphone, before realizing to her dismay that her phone battery was down to 12%.

Rifling through her bag, panic spiked as the woman understood that she did not have in her possession, an iPhone charge cable. Dark eyes raked through her surroundings, desperately seeking a solution to her catastrophe…only to remember that Ron and Lavender were _Android_ users.

Slumping backwards, an audible sigh of despair threatened to rise from her chest. However, very firmly, she reminded herself that charge cables would only put her out a few quid, and it wasn’t as if those things were hard to find.

In her hands, the battery level of her iPhone plummeted by another 1%.

Distastefully, Hermione noted that the screen of her device was also filled with text messages from Cormac, all of which he had sent the previous night as she tried to find sleep. Pressing a button on the top right corner of the smartphone, she observed with some satisfaction as the screen went black.

Closing her laptop, Hermione ran a frustrated hand through her curls, only to find her fingers snagging against a vicious snarl which refused to untangle itself despite her relentless tugging.

Forcing herself to breathe deep, she clambered to her feet. Determinedly, she strode towards the kitchen and stepped past the small threshold…only to freeze in place.

In the two months since Ron and Lavender had moved in together as a couple, Hermione had been over exactly once. The reason for that particular visit, had been to move the both of them into their new flat. At the time, she had thought the kitchen small, but bare and clean.

Indeed, the previous night when she had arrived at their home, she hadn’t bothered to enter the room where presumably, Ron and Lavender prepared and kept their food…

Which was how she had remained blissfully unaware of the war zone laying two feet away from the futon.

Gazing in silence upon piles of empty cans and bottles laying atop every flat surface in sight, and staring at the dishes piled up in the sink, for the first time, Hermione questioned how well she really knew Ron. She wondered how much of a fit Molly was going to pitch, the moment she found out that her sweet baby boy was living in self-imposed squalor.

 _Or maybe this was how non-OCD people existed_ , she began telling herself as she ventured further into the kitchen. _Perhaps the problem wasn’t Ron or Lavender; maybe it was actually her._

What kind of self-respecting twenty-something woman colour-coded her sock drawer anyway? That species of woman did not exist, that’s what. Really, this was all on her issues, not theirs…

Gingerly, Hermione commenced her hunt for Ron’s kettle.

Shifting aside a large pile of soiled dishes in the stainless steel sink as softly and as carefully as she could, a creature with six legs and a shining brown carapace skittered hastily into the shadows.

The cockroach emerged from behind the sink. On long, spindly limbs, the disgusting creature fled up the wall and darted into a small crack.

Screeching, Hermione leapt backwards in horror, slamming her bruised back heavily into a layer of drywall.

“What’s happening?” Ron yelled frantically from the bedroom. “Is everyone alright?”

“Hermione?” Lavender called sleepily.

“I saw a…” Hermione caught her breath. “Guys, I just saw a cockroach in your kitchen! I mean…how?”

Silence followed her hysterical pronouncement. Roaches were an American problem; they were not…they weren’t… _oh Christ_.

“I’ll spray some stuff later,” Ron said at last, sounding more calm than she would generally prefer in the face of such catastrophe.

Working her jaw furiously, Hermione fought to control her racing heart. At last, she called out, “Sorry for waking you,”

Fleeing back to the safety of the living room, Hermione ran her hands over the length of her arms, doing her utmost to sooth away her goosebumps. At last, after weighing her scant options, she reached for her fully zipped-up duffel and drew out a small, organized pouch of toiletries.

Carefully re-zipping her bag in such a way that _nothing_ could crawl in, Hermione brandished a hairbrush before her as if it were a weapon, and made her way towards the shower.

***

Two hours later found Hermione seated at her desk at the office, with her phone plugged into an outlet. On the monitor before her, was the document Colin had helped her proof only the day before, with extra comments lined up on the right hand side. A third cup of tea sat to her left, one which had been brewed in the spotless staff kitchen shared between herself and her teammates.

The woman read and re-read the words before her, making small changes here and there.

After an hour, she gave pretending that she was actually capable of doing any real work that Saturday morning. Deleting all her senseless edits, Hermione opened up a web browser, with every intention of hunting for a new home.

The first thing she noticed as she began scrolling through the flat listings wasn’t so much the size of the units on offer, the neighbourhoods, or the basic decor featured in the published photos of each property advert.

It was the price point by which these places were all being rented out at.

Daylight robbery must have become legalized…because otherwise, what the actual _fuck_?

Uncomfortably, it occurred to the Hermione that she probably ought to start applying some basic accounting towards her life as a whole.

Pulling up a spreadsheet, the woman began to tabulate her monthly income, pitting them against her expenses which she was now solely responsible for, given that she was no longer going to be splitting bills with Cormac…

…who had spent the entire morning texting her. Really, she ought to silence his messages…

Itemizing her expenses, Hermione came to a few grim conclusions. They went as followed:

  1. She was not going to be able to afford a whole place to herself
  2. She was likely going to need to really downgrade certain aspects of her lifestyle - which meant less book purchases, and no more takeout four nights a week…
  3. She might have to consider purchasing a new can of bear spray, depending which neighbourhood she ended up living in. Bear spray, or a very sharp switchblade
  4. She needed to start budgeting for a divorce lawyer because _those_ creatures were probably very expensive



Staring at her pitiful ledger, Hermione considered the option of calling her parents for help…except the very thought of having to admit to them that they had always always right about Cormac, made her queasy and angry all at once.

Slumping back in her swivel chair, Hermione was about to fall into a pit of misery when her phone began to ring. Peering apprehensively at her screen, her shoulders slumped in relief see that it was Ron who was trying to reach her, rather than her bloody husband.

“I’ve sprayed the sink,” her best friend blurted out the moment she answered. “And the dishes have been cleaned. The bathroom’s been scrubbed too - because yes, I am fully aware, it was a horrifying mess,”

“Oh Ron, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to trouble you…” Hermione started, then wondered why she was being so apologetic about her best friend trying to make his apartment habitable.

“It’s no trouble. Lavender and I are terrible slobs,” Ron admitted freely and bluntly. “If Mum knew about the state you found us in, I’d never hear the end of it,”

It would have been an amusing exercise to use her knowledge of Ron’s living habits as a weapon over her best friend, if only it didn’t mean that she would have to tell everyone that she had just officially begun her separation from Cormac. So far, only her two best friends were aware of her new reality.

“Where are you, anyway?” Ron asked curiously.

“I’m at work. I had some things I needed to take care of,” Hermione said. It wasn’t completely a lie - after all, she had stared at one document for an extended period of time.

“Right. Lavender’s a bit worried you’re cancelling on us tonight. Also, I was planning on buying you a couple of rounds to make up for being a shit host…you are coming back soon aren’t you?”

Ron was fibbing on the Lavender bit, that much was obvious. Glancing at the open spreadsheet in front of her, Hermione wondered at the wisdom of going out for drinks when she really ought to be keeping a close eye on her savings.

“Come on, it’s just a few drinks,” Ron cajoled pleadingly; he didn’t bother trying to disguise his genuine concern for her.

An email notification popped up at the corner of her computer screen, from cmclaggen@mclaggenattorneys.com. The message started with,

_“You’re being extremely unreasonable. I’ve already said I’m sorry. I swear, it won’t happen again. Come on ‘Mione, just come ho…”_

“Yeah, I’ll come out for a drink,” Hermione answered as she switched her monitor off.

***

Someone was splitting her head open with a pickaxe, and the volume on the telly did nothing to alleviate the throbbing pain behind her eyes. Seated on the floor not far away, Ron and Lavender was sprawled against each other as they watched some ridiculous American game show whilst munching on soggy toast.

On screen, people who were freakishly athletic performed inhuman stunts, spurred on by screaming spectators.

Spotting their waking friend, her best friend waved languidly over at her, while Lavender eyed her with something that might have been resentment.

“You were _so_ drunk last night,” Ron laughed.

Fighting off the urge to throw up, Hermione closed her eyes and tried to remember what it was like to live without pain.

***

The first ‘school night’ she spent with Ron and Lavender, Hermione had assumed that the couple simply stayed up late because in their minds, Sunday was still the weekend, and weekends were for relaxing.

Seriously, who was she to judge them? Just because _she_ turned in at ten on a Sunday night, didn’t mean everyone else had to. To her understanding, Post-Grad students had lots of work to get through, and surely, they had sensible sleep patterns.

That was Sunday.

***

On Wednesday afternoon, Hermione texted Harry frantically from the privacy of a stall in the women’s washroom.

This was immediately after a meeting where Severus had reamed into her for circulating a document riddled with grammatical and factual errors, along with a very unfortunate misspelling of their client’s name “Cynthia”…in an email which she accidentally sent to said client.

Who knew a misplaced letter ‘u’ could cause so much offence?

<Help me. I can’t continue at Ron’s. I’m going COMPLETELY insane.>

Two seconds later, her phone buzzed in her hand. 

<Ginny says the fact that you’ve lasted this long is impressive> Harry wrote. <Come over, we’ll make up the sofa-bed for you>

 After work, she stopped back at Ron’s place to pick up her belongings. A sullen Lavender and a disappointed Ron observed her every move as she packed her meagre belongings back into her duffel.

“You’re welcome to stay until you find a new place. You know that don’t you?” Ron sounded mournful and guilty.

“The both of you have been sitting on the _ground_ because of me,” Hermione put on her most apologetic voice, the one she used on clients when she was about to deliver really bad news. “Really, I should have been _far_ more considerate of your space before I showed up here. Harry’s got tons more room to offer and he basically _insisted_ I go over. Besides, I think your sister made him ask,”

Mentally, Hermione reminded herself to buy Ginny a nice bottle of tequila. Though…wasn’t she still nursing?

“I suppose it would be nice to have the sofa back,” Lavender groused.

“Listen, the moment I find a new place, the both of you are welcome to come around for a drink or two,” she grinned as brightly as she could.

In her new home, she was going to kick them out at the stroke of eleven-thirty, and that was that.

Ron nodded glumly. “I was really enjoying having you as a roommate. Do you want me to just call Harry and tell him…”

“No!” Hermione’s eyes widened. “No, don’t…it’s fine. I really don’t mind,”

“Let her _go_ Ron,” Lavender rolled her eyes, having caught on to the game half an hour ago.

Ruefully, Hermione shook her head and reached out to offer the both of them a one-armed hug each. “Thanks for offering me a place to sleep when I needed it. You have no idea how much I appreciate the both of you,”

Against her embrace, Lavender softened and patted Hermione’s hair once again.

“I’m here if you ever want to talk. I know the lads aren’t always the best at these sorts of things…”

“Thank you Lav,” Hermione sighed. “You’re truly a wonderful person,”

With one last wave, she was out the door and out their flat. Driving towards Harry’s, Hermione felt her spirits lift.

***

Crying babies were in fact, just as irritating as Post-Grad students.

Worse, because they couldn’t be held accountable for their actions.

***

Harry was working a late shift down at the hospital, which left Hermione alone with a worn-out Ginny and two young babies. The other woman’s rumpled shirt was buttoned all wrong, and her light trousers held distinct traces of baby vomit.

“This wasn’t what I expected,” the new mother said over baby James’s wails.

The other twin - Lily - slumbered peacefully in Hermione’s arms, with her head tilted at a worrisome angle. Considering that the girl’s mother didn’t seem to care, and as the child wasn’t crying, Hermione decided babies simply had weird physiology.

“What wasn’t?” she asked, wondering if yawning would stir the infant. The baby was adorable when she was asleep…but terrifyingly loud when she was awake.

It was two in the morning on a Monday night. The weekend had seen her leaving voicemails all over the city, in a bid to find a new place to live. So far, she had only seen one place, but the person renting it out also happened to own a massive dog.

One look at the hulking - albeit gentle - beast, told Hermione that Pepper wouldn’t take kindly to sharing her space with a canine companion. It didn’t matter that the mutt was the sweetest thing in the whole wide world. Her cat was a selfish creature at heart, as all felines were wont to be.

“This whole marriage and motherhood thing,” Ginny said flatly, wincing only slightly as James screamed directly into her ear.

“Having twins can’t be easy,” Hermione said, as if she didn’t already _know_ after six days spent living in the same house as two three-month old infants.

“It’s not only the twins,” Ginny’s tone was sour. “Here I am, elbow deep in nappies, while Harry gets to go off to work,”

For a moment, Hermione almost considered pointing out that Harry didn’t ‘get to’ go to work - he kind of _had_ to go to work. Nobody said becoming a doctor would be an easy thing.

“ _I_ get to wipe poop off my hair, while Harry gets to swan off to the pub with Ron, every time he gets so much as a night off from the hospital,”

“Oh,” Hermione re-aligned her sympathies.

“Meanwhile, I don’t even know if I will ever make it back to work,” Ginny continued. “Considering how much time goes into keeping these two alive, I have no idea if that will ever be a possibility at this point. It’s not as if I can simply take off at four in the afternoon to put these little devils down for a nap”

“I hear everything get easier after a few years,” Hermione offered lamely.

“How _many_ years?” the red-headed woman demanded, shifting her child from one shoulder to another. James proceeded to spit up all over Ginny’s pale neck. “Hermione, tell me the truth. Do you think Harry and I got married too young?”

Hermione wondered what, if anything, she was supposed to say to such a ludicrous question.

“What am I saying, of course you think we did,” the red-head sighed, wiping at the mess on her neck with her bare hands. “I think it’s so brave what you’re doing, walking away from your marriage like that,”

“Brave,” Hermione repeated blankly as Lily continued to render her right arm into a state of numbness.

The other woman cast Hermione a conspiratorial look. “I think about it you know. I think about walking out that door and leaving Harry and the twins behind. Sometimes, I imagine what it’d be like to fake my own death…”

“Oh Gin, you can’t possibly be serious!” Hermione found herself sufficiently shocked into wakefulness. Lily must have sensed that something was wrong, as the child began squirming and whimpering for her mother.

The next little while was spent coaxing not only one, but _two_ babies to sleep. When at last the women managed to deposit both infants safely into their cribs, Ginny turned to Hermione with a forlorn look, and amended woefully, “No, I don’t really want to leave Harry or the children. I love them all to bits…”

“Thank god,” Hermione breathed in relief.

“…but ‘Mione, I swear, sometimes I feel as if I’m losing my mind,” Ginny pressed her forearm to her mouth as she yawned. “Oh Christ. It’s three-thirty,”

Patting her beleaguered friend, Hermione wondered if she had finally grown tired enough she would be able to sleep through further wails of unreasonably demanding babies, both of whom were as bad as her grown-up clients.

As it turned out, she very nearly was. For the first time in many, many nights, Hermione somehow managed about four hours of sound sleep.

There was a moment at about five in the morning, when her eyes fluttered open to the sight of Harry begging James to fall back to sleep…but nonetheless, rolling over and squeezing a pillow over her ears managed to shut out her best friend’s terrible singing quite successfully.

The following day, armed with new knowledge, Hermione formulated a plan.

***

For most of Tuesday, the woman toyed with the idea of remaining in the office for as long as she could. As the minutes ticked by however, as Hermione listened to Severus Snape’s scathing comments whilst tolerating his dark glares, the thought of remaining at her desk a minute longer than she had to was enough to set her stomach clenching in aggravation.

By six in the evening, Hermione was well shut of the sight of her workplace.

The pub she found was almost empty, and it smelled only very slightly of stale beer, Hermione observed as she flipped open her personal laptop. Not that any of that mattered - as far as she was currently concerned, the establishment was the closest thing she had to a safe haven right then.

The barstool she had chosen to perch herself on, was situated right beside a yellowing power outlet. There was a strong - free - WiFi connection flowing throughout the pub, but that wasn’t even the best part.

The Hog’s Head closed its doors at one-thirty in the morning.

Sufficiently satisfied with her setup, Hermione turned towards the barman and ordered, “May I get a pint of Strongbow please?”

Her first choice would have been a Martini, but something told her the grizzled old man behind the sticky bar didn’t own a single drop of dry vermouth. Nonetheless, in this slightly damp but very dingy place, she could have a drink without being interrupted by disruptive infants or glowering bosses.

“Are you sure you’re in the right place luv?” the man asked, not moving from where he was leaning against a peeling counter. Brilliant blue eyes regarded her as if she were a very strange specimen of humanity.

“I…” Hermione floundered for a moment, feeling her confidence ebb away ever so slightly. Briefly, she let her eyes slide over the other patrons seated close by.

Walking back to Harry and Ginny’s from the Hog’s Head would probably be a hazard in and of itself, considering the types of people who frequented the establishment…all of whom looked to be on the wrong end of the ‘scary’ scale.

 _But at least it was a short walk_ , she reminded herself.

Mustering what courage she owned, she repeated firmly, “One Cider please. Strongbow, thank you,”

One drink, and she would have all she needed to keep her occupied until she was so tired, she would simply fall asleep the moment her head touched the sofa cushions in her friends’ living room.

Shrugging, the man did as she requested.

Turning her attention back towards her laptop, Hermione resumed her search for a place to live. Preferably, wherever she was going, there would be no grad students or babies to keep her up at night.

The last place she saw, had a single toilet shared between six people; the narrow, cave-like bathroom had a shower curtain for a door. Desperate as she was to stop sleeping on the couches of her friends, Hermione found herself unwilling to hand over a cheque to the landlord, who spent a little too long gazing back at her through a haze of marijuana smoke without saying a word.

Seated in the middle of the nicotine stained dining room, the woman flipped through rental listing after listing, doing her utmost to stave off a growing sense of despair.

***

On her third night spent camping out at the Hog’s Head, Hermione found herself wiping incessantly at her dripping nose. She was quite sure her forehead was burning up, and her eyes felt oddly swollen in her skull.

The sensible thing to do, would have been to return to her temporary home. The only wrench in _that_ plan was that Molly Weasley was visiting her favourite daughter for dinner, and frankly, the thought of facing the matriarch felt too much like a nightmare. God only knew what solicitous nonsense that woman would put her through, were she to catch sight of Hermione in the state she was currently mired in.

Scanning through an online ad for a room with ‘high ceilings, large windows and loads of sunshine’,” Hermione’s itchy eyes began to droop.

After a moment, her chin began to dip…

“Hermione?” a familiar voice startled her awake. Strong, steady hands reached out to catch her before she could topple off her barstool.

“Hello, yes, I’m still drinking that cider, so please don’t take it away, no I don’t need any food, butthankyouverymuchforasking,” she sputtered without thinking.

“What are you going on about? Bloody hell, are you ok?”

Squinting at the blurry figure beside her - the one still keeping a firm hold on her right arm - Hermione found herself peering upwards at a shocked and worried Remus Lupin.

For a split-second, she contemplated lying to the man. Then, realizing he knew her too well to ever buy such a massive load of horse-shit, she looked Remus square in the eye, before pronouncing very succinctly,

“No,”

Reaching calmly for a small, square napkin, Hermione blew her nose for the hundredth time in a single hour. With a very small smile, she added,

“No, I’m not ok at all,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone (who is still reading) is wondering - that apartment with a toilet shared between six people, with a shower curtain for a door...
> 
> Is real.


	5. The Separation: Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you know how in my other story, Remus is kind of an idiot? Well...  
> he's a different sort of idiot in this one.

**Remus**

The Hog’s Head wasn’t a pub Remus frequented.

The reasons were obvious.

Spending five minutes in the establishment always left him feeling like a shower was necessary, if only to scrub off the stink of old nicotine, stale liquor and god only knew what else. The only times he darkened the doors of the Hog’s Head was when he needed a proper setting in which to wallow in self-inflicted misery.

Immediately prior to that fateful night when everything in his life began to change, Remus had spent ten hours at the office wrangling a group of overly-entitled Software Engineers, into producing something he wasn’t necessarily ashamed of.

Not to say that he was overly chuffed about what his teams had churned up. Working for a prominent firm guaranteed Remus a steady income, but it stripped away certain leeways and avenues of creativity which he used to own.

By the time nine pm rolled around, the man found himself too tired to face the prospect of fixing himself dinner in the comfort of his own kitchen. Moreover he was also feeling sorrier for himself than usual, despite the debatable achievements of his day; sometimes, it still felt wrong that he was no longer his own man, but rather, an _employee_.

Worn and weary as he felt, there was exactly one place in the world he could think of, where he could temporarily and effectively fall into a soft abyss of despair.

Stepping into the worst pub in the universe (probably), Remus’s first instinct was to seek out a secluded booth, away from the rest of his fellow patrons. Most of them sat in sullen silence, grizzled and vaguely unhinged as they were usually wont to be.

Roving his gaze over the span of the establishment, unexpectedly, Remus found himself forgetting how to breathe as he spotted the last face he would ever have expected to find, seated at the disgustingly sticky bar of the Hog’s Head.

For half a minute, Remus considered himself mistaken - the woman he thought he was staring at lived on the other side of town. Someone like her would never be caught in a place like this…not in a million years.

Hermione liked Manhattans and Martinis; she enjoyed the occasional Old Fashioned and the even more occasional Negroni (because she hated gin). When she was finished with cocktail hour, the woman typically fancied a nice Spanish red, or a tot of Writer’s Tears on the rocks.

What she _didn’t_ go in for, was cheap beer poured out of mouldy taps…not unless Ron Weasley was present and twisting her arm into it, anyhow.

As the seconds passed however, and as the object of his focus began toppling off her chair in slow motion, Remus understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was indeed, gazing upon Hermione Jean Granger.

Letting go of his uncertainty, he strode across the length of the dining room. Dropping his laptop bag - because _fuck_ work machines, seriously - with both hands, he grasped firmly at Hermione’s too-thin shoulders before she could tumble onto the less than pristine carpet underneath their shoes.

“Hermione?” Remus asked in consternation, wondering for a moment if she were drunk. Under his palms, he could feel the distinct shape of her shoulder blades.

_When had she gotten so thin?_

Dark eyes shot open as Hermione proceeded to mumble unintelligibly at him. Studying her wan features, Remus frowned at her in ever-burgeoning panic.

The woman he was holding wasn’t in fact, inebriated.The fact that she was simply _extremely_ disoriented however, didn’t add much to Remus’s peace of mind.

“What are you going on about? Bloody hell, are you ok?” the man demanded as he took in her sallow complexion and her limp hair.

Hermione sniffled and rubbed at her nose as she pondered his question.

“No.” she said at last. Smiling weirdly, she concluded, "No, I’m not ok at all,”

Unsure how he ought to respond, Remus turned his gaze towards her laptop. On her thirteen-inch screen, he saw at last the webpage she had been perusing, right before he went and interrupted her evening of solitude.

“I don’t suppose you’ll join me for a drink and tell me what this is all about?” he rasped at last, as the first inklings of understanding began to filter through.

***

Hermione sat across from him, nursing at a fresh pint of Strongbow; under the yellow light hanging directly above their little booth, the deep shadows framing her bloodshot eyes seemed even more pronounced against her pale skin.

“What’s going on?” he asked when he couldn’t cope with the silence laying between them for another blessed second.

“It’s a long story,” she answered, fixing her gaze on a spot somewhere above his right shoulder.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to know,” he could hear the impatience in his own voice. Much as he understood that his aggravation was deeply unhelpful, Remus’s worry for the woman was causing his temper to grow short.

Sinking against her cracked vinyl seat, Hermione rubbed the balls of her hands against her red-rimmed eyes.

“I left Cormac about two weeks ago,”

Remus’s grey eyes widened. “Why? What did that idiot do? Did you…tell me you kicked him out of the house…”

Silently, the man prayed for a different answer than the one he knew he would get.

Casting him a faint smile, Hermione explained, “I was trying to do the right thing. Cormac’s paid a lot more into that house than I ever did. It wouldn’t have been right for me to ask him to leave,”

“Oh Hermione,” Remus groaned. “Tell me he at least offered to leave…”

“Well he didn’t. Anyway, if you must know, my plan wasn’t actually for me to leave immediately. My was was to stay until I could find myself a new place to live…that lasted about two days. In the end, I couldn’t deal with him crying and yelling every night…so I found myself at Ron and Lavender’s,” Picking up her glass, Hermione sipped calmly at her cider. “Did you know, post-graduate students don’t sleep very much? Or that Ron’s kitchen is infested with roaches?”

“Oh god,” Remus winced as he tried to picture Hermione putting up with Ron's slobbish habits.

“Those two kept me awake at all hours, which resulted in a disastrous time at work,” Hermione continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “When I realized that arrangement wasn’t working, I trundled over to Harry and Ginny’s…”

“With the…with the _babies_?” he asked with sinking dread.

“The very same Harry and Ginny’s, yes,” she confirmed with a grimace. “The twins are both lovely and adorable creatures, but oh god Remus…”

“Say no more,” he tried to force a smile. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here, in the worst pub in all of Great Britain, and quite possibly the world,”

“I thought if I wore myself out enough, whenever I returned to Harry and Ginny’s, I’d just fall right to sleep, crying children or not. So far, my strategy has actually been working…more or less. The problem is, since I wake up every morning at six to get ready for work, and _this_ place closes at one-thirty, I’ve been sleeping _maybe_ four hours every night?”

Remus took a large gulp of his whiskey.

“On the bright side, I think I’m getting desperate enough to take the next flatmate that would have me,” she cast him a wry grin.

“Why didn’t you come to me? Or to Sirius?” Remus asked after a moment, fighting off visions of marching over to Cormac’s and beating him to a bloody pulp.

“I didn’t want anyone else to know yet, what’s been going on,” she confessed. “I didn’t really want to make a fuss. Also, frankly, I thought I would have found a new place by now. In hindsight, I suppose that was extremely naive of me to think that was possible,”

Listening to her half-arsed explanation, Remus found himself unsurprised. Hermione had always been hardheaded, persistent and self-sufficient to a fault. The fact that she had even asked Ron or Harry for a place to stay took him by surprise.

Still, none of what she had just told him was acceptable; she was plainly wasting away, and no one was doing a damned thing to really help her.

Taking a deep breath, he told her, “I have a guest room, with an actual _bed_ in it. I don’t have infants in the house, and I sleep at a decent hour,"

“That’s really lovely, but really, I couldn’t put you out that way…” Hermione started.

“Hermione, I wasn’t actually asking,” Remus informed her. “This…this _routine_ of yours isn’t working. You were _literally_ about to fall out of your chair when I found you…unto a carpet that’s not been cleaned since 1972,”

Weakly, she protested, “I was resting my eyes,”

“ _Resting your eyes?_ ” he repeated incredulously. Tilting his gaze, he glared at the other patrons of the Hog’s Head. “You would have woken up without your money, your laptop and possibly _both_ your kidneys,”

“But I…”

“No buts Hermione,” he dug out his wallet and drew out some crumpled pound notes from within its folds. Setting the cash under his emptied tumbler to cover both their tabs, he turned towards Hermione, and said as confidently as he could, “You need this,”

“My things are at Harry and Ginny’s,” she scowled up at him, refusing to budge from her spot. “I have to go to work tomorrow,”

Running a tired hand over his face, Remus tried again.

“You’re in no state to be going anywhere, except to bed for the next sixteen hours. Forgive me for saying this, but you look horrible, and you’re clearly not feeling well,”

For a second, as her bottom lip wobbled ever so slightly, Remus wondered if Hermione was going to cry…which wasn’t a scenario he was sure he could handle effectively. One tear and he would cave to her senseless demands, and then they would be right back to where they started when he strolled into the pub.

“Hermione,” he murmured as he reached down to grasp gently at her limp hand. “Please,”

“Are you sure?” she asked. In a hopeful voice which damned near broke his heart, she asked, “The room has a proper bed? Not a…not a sofa-bed?”

If he ever saw Cormac McLaggen again, Remus was going to take his sweet time murdering that little shit.

“Not a sofa,” he nodded firmly as she stood up. “It even has pillows and everything,”

Curling a protective arm around her, Remus led Hermione away from the Hog’s Head.

***

The day he lost Tonks and his unborn son, Remus had wondered how he was supposed to go back to his house, which still contained the nursery both he and his wife had so painstakingly put together over the course of eight months.

Staring up at the concrete ceiling of Sirius’s guest room with one arm tucked under his head, Remus played through a few possible scenarios he could go with, including

(a) burning down the house, thereby never having to face the reality of what had transpired,  
(b) going into the nursery with a blindfold and sledgehammer, and basically knocking everything to smithereens until he couldn’t recognize the place anymore, or  
(c) actually act like an adult. Which meant he would need to get over himself and strip the light blue paint from the walls, remove the brand new crib, and donate all the purchased toys and supplies to some sort of charity

Options (a) and (b) had appealed to him most.

By the time the funeral came and went however - the funeral which Hermione had pulled together without him being the slightest bit aware of what was transpiring - he had resigned himself to option (c).

There were still guests milling about in his living room, when at last he ascended his darkened stairway. Stumbling past his bedroom, warily, he approached the space where his infant son was supposed to have rested his downy head.

They were going to name the child Teddy, after Tonk’s father; his middle name was supposed to be Lyall, in honour of his own, dead father.

Edward Lyall Lupin, Remus’s very own son…

As Tonks’s pregnancy had progressed, Remus had found himself falling in love with the idea of being a father. In his mind, he had pictured a child who shared his grey eyes and Tonk’s fine cheekbones. Idyllic fantasies of teaching the boy about the world had flooded his imagination, as his wife’s due date drew ever closer with every day that passed.

Staring into the shadowed and abandoned nursery from the other side of the doorway, Remus failed to notice the moment when he stopped being alone. At least, not until Harry began speaking into the silence.

“You don’t have to do anything about this room yet…not if you’re not ready, anyway. Or, if you want…maybe Ron, Hermione and I could deal with it for you,”

Even in his numbed state, Remus appreciated that Sirius had raised himself a fine godson who was wiser than most people his own age. Wiser than _him_ , certainly.

“I wasn’t a great husband, but…and perhaps it was foolish of me to believe so…I thought I would have made a decent father,” he admitted in a cracked voice as he stared at a stuffed wolf sitting on a small pillow.

“You would have been better than simply _decent_ ,” Harry said earnestly as he pushed up his spectacles. “Remus, growing up, you played such a massive role in my life…I don’t know where I would be today if you hadn’t been a part of it,”

“Harry, I really don’t think…” Remus rasped.

“Don’t start that whole ‘you didn’t do very much’ speech again,” Harry ran a hand over his day-old scruff. “I’m sorry all of this happened. I wish there was something more I could do for you,”

Wordlessly, Remus tugged Harry into a hug and proceeded to sob his heart out.

After the funeral, the first thing he had to learn to live with was the very lack of Tonks. Despite all that their marriage had lacked, over the span of months living alongside her glowing presence, Remus had become extremely attached to the woman in question.

In the mornings, he had gotten used to waking up beside his wife; in the evenings, he had become accustomed to the sounds she made as she puttered about the house. In the course of months, he had come to appreciate the silly commentary she ran, every time they sat and watched mindless reality shows on television.

He had appreciated the way she dimpled, whenever he remembered to bring home that curry she liked, from the pub she favoured. He had constantly admired the stoic manner by which she very determinedly dressed herself for work day after day, disregarding her growing physical discomfort if only to ensure she still showed up to work.

For all that he honestly missed her, ultimately, what hurt him the most was the knowledge that he had never ended up falling in love with her the way she had once hoped he would do.

The burden of that final understanding anchored Remus to the bottom of countless bottles of cheap whiskey, for a very, very long time.

But life would insist on going on, never mind his most desperate wishes.

Eventually the man found himself sorting through Tonks’s belongings, trying to make sense of all she had left in her wake. Reluctantly, he donated cartons of her beloved skirts and blouses to nearby shelters and hospitals. With each item of clothing given away, Remus couldn’t help but wonder if he was betraying the memory of that sweet, lively girl whose life he had thusly ruined.

There were certain items of Tonks’s which he carefully retained of course. Photographs, a trinket or two…most of his wife’s jewellery had gone back to her Mother, though the woman refused to so much as look at him, the day he delivered the packages to her doorstep.

“I’m sorry,” he remembered telling the older woman. “I’m so sorry, I never meant to…”

Turning on her heel, Andromeda slammed her front door in his face, leaving Remus with only his consuming guilt for company.

With his wife’s belongings finally settled, there had only one thing left for him to do.

Entering the nursery for the first time since Tonks’s passing, Remus cast his grey eyes about, noting the thick layer of dust which coated every flat surface. Alone in his house, he allowed himself to cry silently into a clenched fist.

Eventually, with hardened determination, he found the strength necessary to dismantle the empty crib. When that task was finished, Remus took apart the small bureau with cheerful animal motifs printed all over its plywood surface.

After that, there was no stopping his progress. Bits of lumber were brought to the nearby rubbish dump, followed by brand new yellow curtains. Onesies, teddy bears, that weird Fisher Price toy that taught children the basics of coding - those were all donated to charity.

One Saturday evening, sitting cross-legged on the floor of an emptied room that had once held such a large portion of his hopes and dreams, the man took a deep breath and wondered if the pain would ever truly recede.

Staring up at a full moon through uncovered windows, Remus wondered if he even deserved to live in a world where he wasn’t suffering for his sins.

***

Standing in the middle of his guest room - painted a light grey and filled with furniture he’d picked up over the last three years - Remus focused his entire attention on his new houseguest, who looked as though a light breeze might knock her flat on her arse.

“I really appreciate this,” she said sincerely as she wandered towards the double bed.

“Do you… _have_ you been eating?” he frowned suspiciously.

“Obviously,” she scoffed half-heartedly as she ran a covetous hand over cotton covers. “I’m still alive aren’t I?”

Remus shook his head adamantly. “Don’t be a smart-arse. You know what I mean,”

Rolling her eyes, Hermione said, “I gave in and ordered a curry at the pub tonight. I was simply too hungry to stop myself,”

Those words sent another tremor of heartbreak and horror racing through Remus’s body.

“You _ate_ at the Hog’s Head?” he asked, sounding aghast, conveniently ignoring the fact that he too, had actually stopped in for dinner. In his mind, it was one thing for him to suffer the consequences of his miserable ways…but it was quite another to stand the thought of Hermione having to endure the same.

“It’s not so bad,” she retorted defensively as she sat down on the springy mattress. Carefully, she placed her things within arm’s reach. “The menu there is cheap, and I’m trying to watch my spending,”

“Fine,” he grunted in discontent as she gave a big yawn.

“Remus?” she cast him a small grin. “Thank you,”

Softening his posture, he tried his best to find a genuine smile for her.  
The two of them had been friends for ten years. Over the course of that entire, hefty span of time, Remus had never seen Hermione looking quite so discombobulated or so lost.

Hermione was always in control, and always sharp. The sight of her collapsing into herself like an exploding star made Remus’s heart clench painfully in his chest. With every fibre of his being, he wanted to gather her into his arms, if only to protect her from everything that might want hurt her.

The only thing preventing him from doing such a thing, was a strange and ridiculous fear that if he did reach out for her, there was a chance he might never want to release her back out into the world ever again.

Which was _stupid_.

All his friend needed was some rest, and she would be back to terrorizing everyone around her.

“The bathroom is down the hall, and the kitchen is yours for the plundering,” Remus told her.

“Mm kay,” Hermione nodded as her head dipped towards a pillow. “Seriously…thank you,”

“Hermione…” he gazed helplessly at her.

“Yes?” she inquired.

Realizing he didn’t actually know what to say, Remus dropped his gaze and muttered a soft, “Good night,”

Turning on his heel, he left the guest room and shut the door behind him.

***

 _How long had things been going to shit with Cormac_ , Remus wondered as he poured himself a large drink; with his other hand, he redialed the number he had already tried twice.

When at last Harry answered, Remus wasted no time on useless greetings.

“Did you have _any_ idea at all, that Hermione has been spending her nights all alone at the Hog’s Head,”

“What?” Harry sounded confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Do you know what _kind_ of people even go to the Hog’s Head?” Remus took a generous sip of twelve-year-old Glenlivet.

“I don’t know what you’re on about Remus, or what you’re trying to say,” Harry sounded angry. “She’s a grown woman, not a child. I can’t exactly tell her where she’s _allowed_ to go or not go,”

“Right but how could you not notice that the woman currently looks like death warmed over? Christ Harry, she was _half-conscious_ when I found her tonight,”

An uncomfortable silence ensued.

“I take it she’s with you,” Harry sounded so horribly worried, Remus immediately regretted his outburst of sorts.

“Yes, thank god. I found her tired out of her mind, sitting at the pub trying to find a place to live,” Remus breathed. “The woman was literally falling out of her chair,”

“Fucking hell. She has a perfectly good sofa-bed waiting for her right here…” Harry trailed off. “Granted, Molly was over and I don’t think she wanted that kind of attention. You know how my mother-in-law gets,”

Oh yes, but he _did_ know. Remus thought as he reached up to tug frustratedly at his hair.

“She can’t keep sleeping on futons and sofa-beds,” Remus’s lips twisted in distaste. “I don’t suppose you could bring her things over in the morning? I think she should just stay here until things get settled,”

“Really?” Harry sounded surprised.

“Yes, of course _really_ ,” Remus fiddled with his glass, wondering why Harry was behaving as if his suggestion was such an outlandish idea. “I’ve got a perfectly fine guest room that’s been going to waste - this arrangement makes perfect sense,”

“It’s just…” Harry hesitated. “It’s not weird? I mean…um…she used to have that crush on you and everything,”

“What does _that_ have to do with anything?” he demanded a trifle testily. “She’s just left her husband, and she’s been wandering around London in a daze. I think all of that trumps an innocuous crush she had when she was _sixteen_ , don’t you think?”

“To be honest, she wasn’t the one I was…” Harry stopped speaking for second. "I just mean she’s fresh out of a marriage from Cormac. Her head’s probably not screwed on properly. Besides, did she _say_ she wants to stay at your place?”

“You should have seen her face when I showed her the guest bedroom,” Remus intoned darkly. “It was as if she had finally found her long-lost love after years of separation. By the way, do you have any idea what the hell triggered this?”

“No,” Harry answered. “But you can’t say we all didn’t see this coming. Cormac was always a bit of a bastard. Ginny and I are just surprised she didn’t leave him sooner,”

Mentally, Remus conceded that he had never once thought Cormac McLaggen was right for Hermione. However, his lurid imagination would not leave him alone, as he considered all the crimes McLaggen might have committed against the woman currently sleeping upstairs.

“I’ll drop by in the morning with Hermione’s bags. Jesus, I feel like such a shite friend,” Harry sounded devastated.

“No, that’s not true at all,” Remus was now feeling a lot less self-righteous than he had been at the beginning of the call. “You work twelve hours a day, _and_ you’ve got two bawling babies to care for. It’s a wonder you haven’t started balding,”

There was a short scuffle on the other end, before Ginny’s voice came through.

“Could you please tell Hermione that she’s welcome to come back whenever she wants?” Harry’s wife sounded frantic with guilt. “I’ll even make those chocolate biscuits she likes so much,”

Remus asked hopefully, “Did she tell _you_ anything about what might have happened?”

“No but…” Ginny huffed. Her voice became slightly muffled as she unsuccessfully tried to block the mic. “Harry, I think Lily’s crying, could you please go look in on her?”

In the background, he could hear Harry protesting. After a while, the woman resumed speaking in a very low tone, “I have my suspicions. None of them are good ones,”

Quashing down a combination of disappointment and trepidation in his chest, Remus sighed.

“Thanks Gin,” he said at last. “I’m going to get myself to bed. It’s been a very strange day,”

Ending the call, he stared at his phone, wondering if he ought to give Sirius a ring. To keep anything from his best friend felt completely wrong…

Given the man’s tendency to jump towards unfounded conclusions however, the idiot might decide to drive over to Cormac’s and break some skulls without thinking through his actions. While that thought certainly had its appeal, Remus doubted Hermione would greet such rashness with anything other than furious contempt.

No, he thought resignedly as he drained his glass, it was much better for them all to practice a bit of patience. It was a better to wait until the woman was ready to tell them what McLaggen had gone and done.

After that though…after that, all bets were off.

Rising to his feet, he tapped a single button on his smartphone, effectively shutting off all lights on the ground floor.

Everything would look better in the morning, Remus decided as he climbed slowly towards his bedroom. Everything had to, because those were the rules of the universe…

***

Everything did _not_ look better in the morning.

Sipping at his first cup of coffee, Remus listened in closely as Harry made a game attempt at reasoning with a stubborn Hermione.

His houseguest (temporary roommate?) had woken him up by accident, thanks to the shrill beeping of her mobile phone. Not quite knowing what to do, Remus had simply gone about his morning routine an hour earlier than usual.

To his quiet relief, Hermione did not immediately emerge from the guest bedroom after her alarm went off. Evidently, the woman was going to take his advice - she was going to stay in bed for the rest of the day, in order to recover from her recent misadventures all around town.

Unfortunately, his relief was not to last. As Remus slipped on a rumpled blue shirt over an old Batman tee, he started in surprise as Hermione ambled past his open bedroom door, towards the top of the staircase.

“Hermione…” he called after her. Hastily, he finished buttoning his shirt. “Where are you going?”

“Back to Harry’s of course,” she said through a yawn. “All my things are there, and I’ve got to get ready for work. As it is, I’m going to be an hour late…not that I care, mind you. That bed you keep in your guest room is extremely comfortable, and I feel like a new woman,”

That last statement was a bit of a stretch, and Remus could plainly tell that even _she_ knew she was lying to herself. Granted, Hermione did seem a lot less brittle than she had been only eight hours before.

“Why don’t you take a sick day?” he asked as he stepped out of his bedroom. “I mean…”

Before he could continue, Remus was interrupted by a knock at his door.

 _Harry_ , Remus found himself thinking gratefully. If there was anyone who could talk sense into Hermione, it had to be Harry.

Or at least, that had been his hope twenty minutes ago.

In the present, Hermione’s best friend begged ineffectively, “‘Mione, please take the day off. I can tell from your symptoms that you’re about to collapse from exhaustion. I’ve been to medical school and everything so I know what I’m talking about,”

Downstairs, Remus rolled his eyes as he took in Harry’s inherent lameness. It was a damned good thing the boy never had any aspirations in Sales and Marketing.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Hermione’s aggravated voice bounced off the walls of the townhouse. “I’m a little tired, that’s true, but I can’t call in sick just because I’m _tired_ ,”

Amending drastically his assessment of Harry’s persuasive abilities, Remus set his coffee mug down. Steeling his resolve, he barrelled back upstairs.

Bluntly - and very bravely - he blurted out, “You look like hell,”

“Flattering as that sounds,” she said bitingly as she gathered her hair into a messy bun. “I have a job to do. Luckily, my level attractiveness or lack thereof doesn’t factor into my work,”

“You’re wearing yourself out,” he pointed out stoically. It wouldn’t do to display any form of weakness when he wanted very badly to win this particular battle. “I don’t know how you expect to do a good job in the state you’re currently in,”

“Remus, I’m fine,” she assured him as she bent over to pick up her laptop bag. “One night in a proper bed did wonders. And thank you for having Harry bring my things over. I’ll be out of your hair after this. Harry, I’m so sorry I worried both you and Ginny. I’ll come back tonight at a reasonable time and…”

Harry shook his head. “Remus told me what you’ve been up to at the Hog’s Head. You should have told me how that sofa-bed was killing you, and how you haven’t been sleeping. I think you should start sleeping here instead,”

A flash of hurt slashed across Hermione’s expressive face.

“This room has been going to waste as it were, so why don’t you just stay here until you find a new place to live?” Remus said hastily, wishing someone had thought to install a filter between Harry’s brain and his mouth. “I promise, I’m not such a horrible roommate,”

“Hold on a second. Are the two of you telling me that its already been _decided_ where I would be sleeping for the foreseeable future?” Hermione’s voice took on a dangerous quality, “Did either of you consider asking me for my opinion on the matter?”

“That’s not exactly…” Harry gulped, taking a step back. “Well, _Remus_ said…”

Throwing her hands up in frustration, Hermione grabbed her laptop bag and stomped out of the room. Loudly, she descended the staircase and slammed the front door on her way out. The fact that she seemed so _Hermione_ in that moment, brought a genuine smile to Remus’s face.

 _There_ was the strong, assertive woman he knew, who didn’t suffer fools who presumed to control her path. The fact that she had left behind a duffel full of clothes and toiletries on the bed, only served to heighten his gladness.

The woman was coming back.

“You had better wipe that smug grin off your face,” Harry- _traitor_ -Potter advised flatly. “If you think she’s just going to accept the way we’ve handled everything, then you’ve got another think coming,”

Bloody Harry and his bloody logic, Remus thought as his smile faded.

***

All day long, Remus actively stopped himself from texting Hermione every two minutes, to ask how she was coping.

Much as he didn’t like the radio silence between them, instinct told Remus that he needed to grant Hermione space, if only because bugging her would probably only irritate her further. The last thing he wanted was for the woman to get angry enough she decided to stay away from his house for as long as she reasonably could, if only to avoid speaking with him.

Exactly as she had been doing with Harry.

Thus, with what he considered impressive fortitude, Remus soldiered through meeting after meeting _not_ reaching for his iPhone. He wrote a few lines of code, sent multiple emails and managed adequately, a number of volatile software engineers. Occasionally, he even cracked a joke or two, though no one seemed to find him funny in the least.

That last part - that was just par for course.

If he spent a considerable amount of time digging through Hermione’s Facebook page to see if he could find a clue about what had transpired between herself and Cormac…well…

At around five in the afternoon, Sirius texted, <drink?>

Unthinkingly, Remus responded, <not tonight>

It was only after he hit ‘send’, that Remus understood he had just made a phenomenal mistake. Friday night drinks was an age-old tradition, and he had just disrupted tradition. As he should have anticipated, Sirius began worrying at his response like a dog with a bone.

<Why not?> Sirius asked, his childish petulance shining through even via text message.

<I don’t feel like it>

<But why not? What aren’t you telling me?> the man-child asked. <Hot date?> 

<No.> Remus tapped out impatiently. 

An explosion of texts followed from the idiot on the other side, who obviously had nothing better to do with his time outside of annoying the crap out of Remus. 

There was no doubt in his mind that Sirius Black was spending Friday afternoon lounging around in his overly-posh top-floor office, with his shiny black shoes propped up upon his sleek white desk.

<No come on>  
<Who Is it>  
<Is she hot?>  
<Why won’t you tell me>  
(Here, Sirius sent a puzzled .gif of a confused black labrador)  
<Remus>  
<Remus>  
<REMUS>

Since lying always got him into further trouble, Remus finally and reluctantly typed,  <Hermione’s in trouble, and she’s staying at my place. I want to be home when she gets there.>

Ten seconds later, his phone started ringing.

“What do you mean ‘in trouble’?” Sirius asked the moment Remus answered. “What’s happened?”

“You can’t tell anyone. She won’t forgive me if I did,” Remus warned, peering around his somewhat deserted office. Thankfully, what with it being a Friday evening in the summertime, most of his colleagues had already left for the weekend. 

“Just spit it out,” Sirius sniped impatiently. 

“Hermione’s gone and left Cormac,” Remus muttered. “She’s been sleeping at Ron and Harry’s for the past two weeks, but I found her last night, half dead at the Hog’s Head,”

“You can’t be serious,” Sirius breathed. “The bloody _Hog’s Head_?”

“Right. Exactly,” Remus answered, and repeated. “You can’t tell anyone,”

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn’t want Molly to know. If I had to guess, she doesn’t want ridiculous amounts of smothering, or…” Remus hesitated. “Or Molly telling her parents or something equally overbearing,”

“Bloody hell,” Sirius sounded aggrieved. “What the hell did that arsehole do anyway?”

“Hell if I know, she won’t tell me, or anyone for that matter,” Remus admitted. “Anyway, she’s a bit ticked off right now. Between Harry and I, we might have twisted her arm into staying in my guest bedroom,”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

“Hello?” Remus inquired, wondering hopefully if their call had been dropped. 

“You do realize it’s a bit weird, her staying with you,” Sirius started.

“Oh god not you as well,” Remus dropped his forehead onto his desk.

“I’m just saying. She used to have quite a crush on you,” Sirius said placatingly, then added. “Hermione’s quite attractive, as I’m sure you’ve noticed…considering it’s been a while since you’ve gotten a leg over, and considering she’s probably not in the right state of mind, don’t you think…”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong with both you and your godson,” Remus interjected as his head shot up. “Hermione happens to be Harry’s age, which makes her almost two decades younger than I am. _And_ she’s going through a divorce. Do I honestly seem that desperate and lonely to you?”

Pansy, the office receptionist, ducked her head from around a hidden corner and smirked in blatant amusement at his pronouncement.

Remus wanted to die.

“No, but…”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Remus demanded, turning his flushed face away from an obscenely curious Pansy. “Should I turn Hermione back out onto the street, so she can take her chances with Ron or Harry once again? Between the two of them, they succeeded in ensuring she ended up at the Hog’s Head all on her own for three whole nights. Sirius, she could have gotten herself mugged in that hellhole…or…or _worse_ ,” 

“I do have that spare room,” Sirius mused, before adding a little slyly. “I’m sure she could use a shoulder to cry on right about now,”

“No,” Remus heard himself growling. 

Much as his best friend made it sound as if he were simply trying to make light of the situation, Remus knew that Sirius wasn’t necessarily joking when it came to the topic of bedding beautiful young women…even if said woman was Hermione. 

“That’s probably not a good idea,” he reiterated with feeling.

“Ah well,” Sirius laughed. “Do you need me to come over? Does she need me to go beat the stuffing out of McLaggen?”

“No, and not yet,” Remus sighed. “Maybe never. Doesn’t _Black Shipping_  have some rather hefty services contracted out to _McLaggen Tax Attorneys_  by the way?”

“Come to think of it, probably,” Sirius sounded thoughtful. 

“Whatever. I need to go grab some dinner. The way the woman looks, you’d think she hasn’t eaten in a month,”

“Are you sure I shouldn’t go kick the shit out of McLaggen? Please just say ‘yes’…” 

“Do _not_. I mean it,”

“Fine,” his friend sounded annoyed. “Fine,”

***

Remus spent far too long at the supermarket staring at the cooked food options; the entire time, he wondered if perhaps he ought to simply order a pizza, or some other fast food option. 

The problem however, was that Remus had the distinct feeling that Hermione had likely been subsisting on subpar food ever since she started her roving misadventure around the city. 

Contrary to what people like Ron Weasley and Sirius Black firmly believed, men could not subsist on sandwiches and pizza alone. Certainly, the effects of a lousy diet were already manifesting in her too-sharp shoulder blades, and her waxy complexion. 

Plucking an overcooked rotisserie chicken from a heated shelf, Remus couldn't help but wonder a little uncharitably, how it was that Hermione's very best friends seemed happily oblivious to the extent by which she had been deteriorating.

Loading his shopping basket with some rather boring salads, it suddenly occurred to the man that he never did give Hermione a house-key…

Hurriedly, Remus paid for his purchases. Stepping out of the air-conditioned confines of the supermarket, he broke into a full-out run. Arriving on his street, panting and gasping as if he had just completed a marathon, he found Hermione sitting on his front step, staring quizzically up at him.

“Hello,” she called as he slowed his steps. “Are you getting your workout in?”

Feeling incredibly foolish, but extremely grateful that she hadn’t decided to disappear in a cloud of rage, the exhausted man grinned down at Hermione as he tried desperately to catch his breath.

For the second time in his life, it occurred to Remus that even fatigued and careworn, Hermione was an exquisite creature. In the light of the setting sun, her chestnut curls gleamed fetchingly against her softly rounded cheeks. Bow lips curved into an affectionate smile.

“Have you been waiting long?” he huffed. To Hermione, he probably looked like a very sad, out-of-shape middle-aged man; the sting of that knowledge however, was nullified by the fond tilt of her head. 

Shifting his shopping bags, he stretched a free-ed up hand towards her. 

“No,” she said as her fingers curled themselves around his palm. Hoisting herself up, she added, “Not long at all,”

With her small palm firmly clasped within his own, Remus wondered if maybe he shouldn’t get himself to an Emergency Room…for reasons he couldn’t quite fathom, as he gazed into Hermione’s dark eyes, his heart wouldn’t stop beating wildly in his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah sorry Remus is a bit of a well meaning doofus in this one.


	6. The Separation: Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double Chapter Post.  
> Testing the subscription functionality because it's bugging the hell out of me. (I have certain compulsive issues lol)

**Hermione**

For the first time in two weeks, Hermione felt like an actual human. For one thing, throughout the entirety of Friday, her muscles had ceased their agonizing complaints. Moreover, she finally managed to put the finishing touches on a document she had been working on for days.

True, her final product contained a number of typos, but at least her error rate had fallen by half, or so it seemed anyway. Conversations began making sense, and the world stopped existing in a blur of colours and shapes.

By three pm, Hermione recognized that she had her friends to thank for this.

Well, one friend in particular anyway.

Much as she absolutely loathed the thought of being ‘rescued’ - because she was Hermione Jean Granger, not some blasted _damsel_ that needed rescuing - one night sleeping in a real bed had done wonders for her state of mind. So much so that the mere thought of returning to Harry’s sofa-bed seemed like a nightmarish and impossible prospect.

By the time she began the process of clearing away her belongings from her desk at five-thirty in the afternoon, Hermione found herself genuinely wondering if staying temporarily with Remus wasn’t such a bad idea.

There wasn’t any real reason why not, she pointed out to herself. Remus was a sensible man, who did not keep any wailing children under his roof. Nor did he possess any tendencies she knew of, which suggested that he might secretly have been the type of person who stayed up all night drinking, or guffawing loudly at ludicrous game shows.

If only she hadn’t run out on both himself and Harry in a fit of pique only a few hours before…

The man hadn’t meant to offend. If anything, all he had wanted to do was lend her a helping hand. True, he had gone about it in the most ham-fisted way possible…but in all the years she had known Remus, she had never once thought of the man as anything other than sweet, generous and _good_.

 _It certainly helps that he’s very easy on the eyes_ , a traitorous little voice whispered at the back of her tired brain as she made her way home.

At last, arriving at his door, Hermione hesitated for a long moment as she reached for the right words to say to her friend. The right apologies.

_Sorry for behaving like a crazy bitch this morning. Sorry I snubbed your kindness. Sorry my life is a complete disaster…I’m sorry I thought I knew everything there was to know at age twenty-three. Sorry._

Summoning what little bravery she had left, Hermione raised her hand and rapped her knuckles politely against the painted wooden surface.

Nobody answered.

She tried again.

For a wild second, Hermione wondered if Remus was actively refusing to answer the door, because he was still furious at her over her misplaced anger from earlier in the day. The fact that some of her most essential belongings were still laying somewhere within his house, only compounded her sudden spike of panic.

Forcing herself to take deep, even breaths, common sense re-asserted itself.

This wasn’t some stranger - this was Remus Lupin, whom she had known since she was sixteen. After Harry and Ron, this man was possibly her closest friend in the whole wide world.

How many hours had they spent over the years, debating the dubious merits of William Gibson’s work? Or the extremely suspect qualities of the superhero films Ron was currently obsessed with?

How often had they sat side-by-side in Molly’s living room, silently providing each other stoic support in the face of the matriarch’s overwhelming _motherliness_?

No, Remus could never be so cruel, simply because she had lost her temper for a split-second. It was only seven in the evening - likely, he was still at work, or on his way home from the office.

Releasing a small sigh, Hermione resumed normal breathing patterns. Without considering too much what she was doing, she sat herself down upon the sun-warmed step leading up to Remus’s door. If the neighbours found her presence questionable, the woman couldn’t bring herself to care.

Glumly, she took what time she suddenly possessed, to reflect that while most of her most immediate necessities were within easy reach, much of her life was still stashed away in the depths of another house on the other side of the city.

There was still so much she had yet to retrieve.

That one bookcase she curated, for instance, was packed to the brim with some of her most beloved belongings. Stacked in its sturdy shelves were photo albums she had snuck from her parents’ home, treasured novels, books on art…and a plethora of other tomes which meant the world to her.

At some point in the near future, Hermione would have to return to the place where she had existed for the past three years of her life. Soon, she would have to face Cormac, and speak honestly with him about what was to come next, with regards to the dissolution of their life as they knew it.

Before she could sink deeper into her gloomy thoughts, the loud thudding of racing feet drew her attention. Tilting her gaze westwards, against the light of the setting sun, she caught the unfamiliar sight of Remus racing towards her, looking for all the world as if he were panicking over some catastrophe of great magnitude.

“Hello,” she greeted, for want of anything better to say. With admirable restraint, she did not focus her attention on how adorably rumpled he appeared. “Are you getting your workout in?”

“Have you been waiting long?” he huffed as he tried to catch his breath. The look he was casting her was a very strange one - it was almost as if he wasn’t sure _whom_ he was staring at, who was seated on his front step.

 _No wonder, considering she was still sitting on the ground like a child_ , Hermione realized with some embarrassment as he extended a helping hand down towards her.

“No, not long at all,” she slid her hand into his own. Pretending she spent a majority of her time seated on the front steps of all her friends, Hermione calmly accepted his assistance as she yanked herself up.

Remus lifted a burdened hand and waved a number of plastic bags cheerfully at her. “I hope you like chicken,”

“But…I had this whole speech planned. I was going to take you out to dinner as a ‘thank you’ for allowing me to sleep here last night,” she told him sheepishly. “Then I was also hoping you could be persuaded into letting me stay on, just a tiny bit longer,”

“Funny thing,” his smile widened. “I was about to do exactly the same,”

Releasing her grip on his hand, Hermione watched the man as he turned to unlock his door. Following him into the familiar cool of his house, decisively and ruthlessly, she pushed away a certain sense of breathlessness which occurred every time she was within five feet of Remus.

Three years of being married to another man had yet to cure her of her impractical infatuation on the man, it seemed.

As the front door shut behind them, the new reality of her temporary situation sank into her consciousness.

Previously, when she had visited Remus, the first thing she did was to stroll directly into his living room, which also happened to double as a portion of his library. The remainder of his books were upstairs in his bedroom, a collection which he had availed to her within weeks of them meeting each other.

Where before, she had no compunction wandering around his house as his favoured guest, now, Hermione stood awkwardly in her host’s foyer, wondering what she ought to do with her hands. As he shed his shoes and deposited his things on the small side table he placed by the door, Remus turned a questioning gaze towards her.

“I…” she started, then shut her mouth when she understood she wasn’t actually sure what she ought to say.

In the silence of his home, Hermione considered with frightening clarity that she was ostensibly flirting with homelessness. To be horribly precise, she was now living off the charity of her friends.

“Hermione?” Remus asked quietly he straightened his spine.

Try as she might, the woman found it impossible to hide the shaking of her shoulders, or the way her sobs were beginning to build up in her chest. To her horror, hot tears began to spill from the corners of her eyes.

“For s-some reas-son, I’m c-crying and I c-can’t s-seem to s-stop,”

Before she knew what was happening, Remus had her enfolded in a tight hug.

“I-I’m s-so s-sorry,” she wept into his chest as her arms curled around him.

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured as his fingers stroked her curls. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about,”

Together, in the dim entranceway of his home, they stood encased in each other for a very, very long time.

***

Without Hermione ever comprehending _how_ , Remus somehow managed to get her aching feet out of her kitten heels.

Prying her burdens from her death grip, the man steered her unerringly towards his dining table set in the kitchen, even as she continued sniffling helplessly into the back of her wrist. Not un-gently, she found herself being shoved into a dining chair. In remarkably short order, a very full glass of whiskey was pushed in front of her.

“It’s Scotch,” Remus told her with a shrug. “I’ll get us a bottle of something better tomorrow,”

“I don’t…” she nudged at it. “I hate Scotch,”

“It’s all I’ve got,” he sounded almost amused as he poured himself a stiff drink of his own.

Lifting the amber liquor, Hermione took a single gulp. And then another. Slamming the half-empty glass down, she gritted out, “Fine, I don’t _like_ Scotch. Happy?”

Humming, Remus wandered past and dropped a brief kiss to her hair, before ambling back towards the entryway.

After a moment, music began to stream in through the walls separating Hermione from the living room.

“It’s the first Chvrches album,” Remus explained, scrolling through his smartphone as he came back into the kitchen.

Despite her still-trickling tears, Hermione rolled her eyes at his pronouncement.

 _Of course_ she knew what album he was streaming. Over the course of the past six months, Remus had managed to find new and increasingly creative ways to bring up the topic of Chvrches in just about every conversation they shared.

Something about their supposedly _fresh sound_ , and their _amazing_ talent, and _Jesus will you just listen to that sound_?

Frankly, Hermione reckoned her friend’s obsession with Chvrches had less to do with their _sound_ , and more to do with an obvious crush on the pixie-like lead singer.

Removing a few plates from his cabinets, very quickly, Remus portioned out chicken and greens and proceeded to deposit food in front of her. Plucking silverware from a ceramic container, carefully, he laid the cutlery down by her elbow as if he were worried that she would bolt at the slightest provocation.

Or that she might start crying again.

“The food isn’t fancy,” he sounded almost embarrassed as he sat down in front of her. “But it’s dinner,”

Wiping at her eyes, Hermione took another hefty gulp of Scotch. Setting down the mostly empty glass, she met the man’s nervous gaze and said very sincerely, “This is the honestly the best looking meal I’ve ever set eyes on,”

Shoulders slumping in relief, Remus reached out to grasp briefly at her hand before he dug into his own dinner.

The two of them ate in companionable silence, with Hermione savouring every last bite, relishing in the knowledge that she wasn’t eating yet another greasy slice of pizza. When at last she found herself too full to swallow another morsel, her plate was swept away from under her nose without her having to lift a finger.

“Are you feeling a little better?” Remus asked softly, settling beside her after he was finished with the washing up. Unprompted, he refilled her glass for the third time. “You know you can stay here as long as you need,"

Hermione felt quite lightheaded, though she suspected it wasn’t only the whiskey causing her brain to float. One night of sleep did not make up for a two week deficit.

“I don’t want to be any trouble,” she punctuated her statement with a yawn.

“You’re not trouble. Not in the least,” he eyed her critically. Looking not at all drunk for a man who had consumed half a bottle of liquor, he leaned forwards and swept her hair off of her forehead. Gently, he cupped at her cheek and ran a gentle thumb over her flushed skin. “I’m worried about you,”

Was it strange, she suddenly wondered, how easy it had become for the two them to simply _touch_ each other over the years?

Gazing into his grey eyes, she confessed quietly, “I’ve never felt so lost in my life. I’m practically homeless right at this very moment,”

“Don’t you dare say any such thing Hermione Granger,” his lips twitched as he admonished her. “You’ll always have a place with one of us. Alright, maybe not Ron…or Harry…or…”

Sighing, she waited patiently for him to gather his thoughts.

“Fine, you’ll always have a place with _me_ ,” he declared, dropping his hand down to where she was clutching at her drink.

Impatiently, almost childishly, he unfurled her fingers for the express purpose of twining their hands together. It was only then that Hermione realized that Remus wasn’t actually as sober as he was pretending to be. Belatedly, and just a tad wistfully, she remembered that her friend was always far more physically affectionate after a certain dose of whiskey.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you this earlier today,” she said morosely and sincerely.

“You had every right,” her companion’s eyes were wide with earnestness; he slurred only very slightly as he added, “I was being a presumptuous prat,”

“Remus?” she sighed as she rested her forehead against his upper arm. The man carded his fingers through her unkempt hair. “You do know you’re my favourite person in the entire world, right?”

Had she thought to catch his eye just then, Hermione might have noticed that Remus was gazing at her as if she were the only star left in his sky. Instead, she yawned once more. As her eyelids slid shut, she decided to rest her eyes for just a brief moment…

***

On Saturday morning, Hermione blinked in confusion at her surroundings. She was tucked under the covers of the bed in Remus’s guest bedroom, with no idea how she had gotten there to begin with.

With the onset of wakefulness however, the cadence of her heart slowed as very sensibly, she concluded that she must have wandered up the stairs in a tired haze, before falling into bed.

As quietly as she could, Hermione stole past the shut door of Remus's bedroom, and completed her morning routines with more ease than she expected. While her host was obviously used to living alone, he kept an ordered home, which sat well with her own neat-freak tendencies.

True, he could have been a little less careless with how he organized his guest towels, and yes, his squeezed his toothpaste wrong. But those weren’t exactly earth-ending aspects of a man’s personality.

Scrubbed and cleaned, Hermione descended to the kitchen with her laptop in hand. Just as she started debating internally, whether or not she ought to take the liberty of making herself a cup of coffee, Remus clattered down after her. Sleepily, he brushed past her, looking disheveled and half-awake.

“Are you making something caffeinated? Because that would be fantastic,” he asked, opening the fridge. “You know where the coffee maker is,”

Shaking her head at her own neuroses, Hermione set down her MacBook and began reaching for an airtight container filled with coffee grounds.

“Since I’m staying for a bit, I suppose I’ll be needing a spare key,” she pondered as she wandered over to the coffee machine. With her back turned, she missed the pleased expression which graced Remus’s features.

Fifteen minutes later, she found herself seated in companionable silence beside her (temporary) roommate in the living room. On television, a Canadian home improvement show aired softly. Around the fourth time somebody mentioned the term ‘mid-century modern’, Hermione's chin began to dip towards her chest…

The next time she awoke, it was to the sight of Remus pouring her a glass of red wine as noisily as he possibly could. On the coffee table in front of her, sat what was ostensibly an actual mountain of spaghetti.

“Isn’t a bit early for wine and pasta?” she asked blearily. “And…why is there so much of it?”

“I suppose seven in the evening is a bit early for dinner,” he teased as he circled the coffee table to sit beside her. A few feet away, his own MacBook sat open, and it looked though if he had been hard at work on a complicated project while she lay sleeping beside him.

“Are you saying I’ve slept all Saturday?” Hermione questioned, wondering why she wasn’t more upset at having wasted a weekend doing nothing.

“You slept _and_ you drooled. All over my Ikea cushions,” Remus nodded as he picked up a remote control and began scrolling through Netflix.

Squeaking in dismay, she took a sip of her wine as he began in earnest to laugh at her.

The next morning, Hermione comforted herself with the knowledge that at least this time, she remembered how she made it to bed.

***

In the weeks that followed, Hermione developed a steady routine.

Some nights involved browsing through rental listings, and making the necessary overtures to set up viewings. Other nights found her wandering through various avenues and streets of the city, trying to find the address of the places she had reached out to.

Although it was true she had started her search right after she had left Cormac’s, there had always been just enough frustrating distractions preventing her from accomplishing more than she should have. These days, with no party animals or babies distracting her, Hermione found herself able to actually perform her hunt in peace.

There was still some logistical issues she had to work through of course. For one, she had to struggle with the inevitable need to eat dinner at some point every evening.

At first, she would bring home takeout, purchases of which she wasn’t fond of making because of the figures she could see diminishing in her savings account.

Despite the expense of it all, Big Macs were somewhat preferable to the the idea of having Remus feed her, _on top_ of providing her a roof over her head. The last thing Hermione wanted, was to breed resentment on his side of things. To his credit, the man seemed dead set on shovelling copious amounts of food in her direction every time she gave him even half a chance…like she was a lost, starving puppy he was intent on saving.

Had she not felt so beholden to him, Hermione might have had a serious talk with Remus about how he was steadily beginning to resemble Molly Weasley. Albeit, a more masculine version of the older woman.

Of course, there was always the option of _cooking_ her meals. But the truth was, Hermione wasn’t exactly comfortable with that notion either. There was always the chance that Remus disliked the thought of his guest making a mess in his home…

One night, as she suffered through yet another Burger King Special, Remus coughed unsubtly from the doorway of the kitchen where he had been leaning for a while. A half-drunk bottle of beer dangled from between long, graceful fingers.

“Do you…um…do you actually _like_ eating burgers and chips all the time?”

“What’s not to like?” she questioned. One hand balanced a Whopper, whilst the other scrolled through new rental listings on her laptop.

Out of all the things she was grateful for, high up on that list was the fact that Remus was a massive consumer of Apple products. There were charge cables distributed liberally throughout his house, for every single one of her devices.

“You do realize you can…I don’t know, _make_ yourself something that isn’t a burger. God knows, you seem upset whenever _I_ make you dinner,” he sounded infuriatingly amused. “Unless of course, you don’t know how to cook…”

“I’m not _upset_ when you cook. And I’ll have you know, I happen to be very good in the kitchen,” Hermione had never liked it when other people inferred she wasn’t capable of doing something _well_. “For one thing, I make a delightful pasta carbonara. I’ll bet _you’ve_ never considered adding truffle oil as a key ingredient,”

“How is it possible that I’ve never experienced your _so-called_ cooking skills?” Remus took a sip from his bottle, before he strolled over and sat across from her. The man was barefoot, and had up to five minutes ago, been working on some assignment in his living room.

“Are you trying to trick me into making you dinner?” Hermione asked half-jokingly.

“Tricking? Nay sweet girl,” he affected an offended tone. “I was thinking however…since you’re feeling so damned guilty about imposing on my hospitality - which yes, I _know_ that’s exactly what’s been running through that brilliant head of yours - why don’t you make _me_ a few dinners and we’ll call it even?”

Making a face at Remus, Hermione couldn’t deny the sense in his proposed solution. In the end, she was after all, growing quite sick of fast food.

The next night, after she viewed yet another badly lit, vermin infested bedsit, Hermione made a stir-fry for two. Watching as Remus inhaled the food she had bought and prepared, a heavy burden of guilt lifted from her tired shoulders.

“I suppose I’ll need to return the favour and make you dinner tomorrow,” he grinned around a forkful of sweet peppers.

“You’re not going to stop with your ‘let’s-all-feel-sorry-for-Hermione-and-save-her’ mission are you?” she fought to keep her lips from twitching. “I thought we agreed that I should make you a few dinners, to make up for my temporary imposition of your space,”

“Hermione, in all seriousness…” his smirk faded slightly. “I don’t feel sorry for you. Not one bit. And I don’t expect any sort of _payment_ for having you stay here. I wish you’d stop thinking that,”

“But…” she started.

“No, I’m not finished,” he set down his fork. “I don’t feel sorry for you, but I can give it a go if that’s what you really want. The way I see though, all that’s happening is that you’re in between places and you need some help finding your feet…which is something that happens to just about everyone, “

“Not everyone,” Hermione pointed out reasonably. “Harry and Ron have never surfed through the living rooms of their friends. And I’ll bet Sirius has never once had to worry about finding affordable housing throughout his entire life,”

“God but you can be annoying…fine, not _everyone_ has to worry about this sort of thing,” Remus sighed. “But take _me_ for instance. After I finished school, I went through this whole period where I couldn’t land a proper job. Since I didn’t really want my parents’ help, I did the bouncing around thing too…probably for far longer than I should have,”

“That’s different too though, isn’t it?” Hermione argued. “You were fresh out of school and all that,”

Remus set his fork to the side. “Maybe. But I’ve spent enough time sleeping on too many couches not to understand what you’re going through,”

“Now that you mention it however…” she looked around her, toying with the stem of her wine glass.

She had never thought to ask herself how an independent consultant came to own a very nice townhouse in a fairly expensive neighbourhood in the middle of London. The place wasn’t luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, neither was it large, but Hermione wasn’t ignorant of property prices in the city.

Actually, now that she was thinking on it, Remus hadn’t been an _independent consultant_ in quite some time. These days, he was a _Director_ within a prominent tech start-up…the type of start-up most engineers would _kill_ to be recruited into.

Forehead furrowing, Hermione tried to remember when that change had occurred. Had she been so wrapped up in her own growing marital troubles, she hadn’t noticed the changes in the lives of her nearest and dearest friends?

“I inherited this house from my parents after they passed,” Remus admitted. “Yes, I am a horrible, no-good _moocher_ Hermione, make no mistake,”

Finally allowing herself a small smile, she answered very quietly, “I suppose that makes it two of us,”

“If that you stop fretting,” he took of sip of the cheap, slightly acrid Pinot Gris she had brought home with her. “I’ll take it,”

“Fine,” she nodded, pushing away a reminder of some of the things Cormac had told her about herself in recent history. “Just remember this conversation when I become your loud and overbearing houseguest whom you can’t wait to get rid of,”

“You don’t understand. I _relish_ the thought of you becoming your loud and overbearing self,” he cast her an appraising look which spoke volumes of his ever-present concern. “I haven’t seen that woman in weeks…”

Solemnly, he set his wine glass down. Snapping her mouth shut, Hermione wondered if it were truly so obvious, all the ways in which she had changed in recent days.

“One of these days…” Remus sat up straight. “One of these days, I would like to know what took away the Hermione I used to know. The one that didn’t shy away from everyone and everything, and who wasn’t afraid of her own shadow,”

“She’s still around,” Hermione croaked after a moment. “Just give her time,”

“All the time you need Hermione…I’ll happily give it,” Remus reached out to squeeze re-assuringly at her hand. “But right now, I get the feeling it’s time for us to drink ourselves stupid, since it’s the weekend and all. Remember what I said about break-ups…”

“That they’re the perfect excuse to get shit-faced and messy,” she laughed shakily.

“That’s my girl,” Remus smiled approvingly.

***  
“It’s two hundred and ninety-five a week,” the realtor confirmed as Hermione wandered through the small space.

The bedsit came furnished, apparently, but unfortunately, none of the furniture in question was pleasant to look at. The walls were painted a cheap lurid green, and in many places, the colour was already peeling back, to reveal smudged surfaces underneath.

On one side of the small space, a full length mirror had been nailed into the wall…which might have been alright, were it not for the fact that the mirror’s dark wooden frame was actually a garishly carved dragon with fake rubies for eyes.

“Can I take that thing off?” she asked, pointing at the eyesore in question.

“No,” the realtor - Dolores - said with a simpering smile. “The landlord was very clear on that,”

Staring at her bemused reflection, Hermione wondered why anyone would ever purchase such an ugly, ugly thing. If ever there were such things as cursed mirrors, this had to be it.

“I’ll need to sleep on this, before I get back to you,” she said very politely.

Turning on her heel, Hermione marched out the small front door, doing her best to ignore the fact that the entire building smelled like the inside of the Hog’s Head pub.

Outside the building, a man was slumped bonelessly against the wall beside the main entranceway. It wouldn’t have been a hardship to think him dead, but for the way his filthy fingers spasmed constantly in his lap.

Arriving at her Toyota, Hermione climbed hurriedly into the driver’s seat and locked all four of the vehicle’s doors. Stepping on the gas pedal, the woman tried to tamp down the relief she felt, upon leaving behind the neighbourhood which might well be her new home.

As Hermione pulled out into a busier thoroughfare, absently, she surveyed her fellow drivers, and the pedestrians who surrounded her…

The flickering light of a Tube Station sign caught her attention. Twisting her face in contemplation, her fingers tapped idly against the worn steering wheel of her car.

***

Letting herself in the front door, Hermione mustered her most cheerful demeanour as she announced, “I’ve made a decision!”

“Decision on what?” her (soon-to-be-ex) roommate called from the kitchen, sounding extremely distracted. Whatever he was cooking smelled like heaven, she thought as she drew out an actually decent bottle of Rioja from her purse.

Leaving the rest of her belongings in the foyer, she called back, “I’m selling my car. Everyone takes transit, so why shouldn’t I? Besides, the money will probably buy me a good law…”

Stepping across the threshold leading into the kitchen, Hermione stopped speaking. For all of a moment, she considered making a run back towards the safety of the street.

“First of all,” Sirius said as he stood up to greet her. “You mustn’t blame Remus. I had to pry it out of him, what’s gotten him so distracted over the past few weeks. Secondly, I can’t believe you tried to keep something this serious from me. _Me_. I thought we were friends ‘Mione…”

The man approached her as if he - rightly - suspected that she might try to do a runner on him.

“But I will _forgive_ you all of that, if you would please, please allow me to go kick the shit out of McLaggen. Pretty please? I will buy you new shoes if you let me. Manolos, I swear. Chanel at the very least,”

“Oh for fuck’s sake…” laughter bubbled from deep within her belly as Sirius stopped in front of her. Decisively, she drew him into a hug; as his arms squeezed tightly across her ribcage, Hermione allowed herself a sigh of relief.

“That’s very sweet of you to offer your arse-kicking services, but I intend on hiring a good lawyer to deal with Cormac. Any violence that will be inflicted, will be done through our attorneys,”

“But sometimes, a good punch in the face does wonders,” Sirius insisted, pulling away so he could take a good look at her. To her annoyance, the man tsked in disapproval at what he saw, sounding nothing so much like some old nona.

At the hob, Remus poked at what appeared to be a pork loin slathered in béchamel sauce. Brussel sprouts simmered nearby in a cast-iron pan, underneath a heap of pancetta, and they smelled surprisingly mouth-watering.

Tilting his gaze, the cook cast Hermione that brilliant smile of his, which made her toes curl, and which made her heart beat just a little faster than was probably considered healthy.

“Are you ok?” Sirius asked gravely as he brushed her curls back.

Turning her attention away from Remus, Hermione batted at Sirius’s hands with playful impatience. Waving her bottle of wine in his face, she declared, “I’m _more_ than fine. We’ve got a reason to celebrate - I’m probably getting out of your boyfriend’s hair in a few days!”

“We’ve been through this. I’m far too good for this man,” Remus spoke up. “What’s this about getting out of my hair? Did you actually find a decent place?”

Taking a deep breathe, she tried for her most convincing grin as she stated, “As a matter of fact, yes I did,”

Pulling up a chair, Hermione began to regale the two men about her latest adventure in one of the seediest neighbourhoods in the city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter up immediately after this.


	7. The Separation: Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fyi, a chapter was posted immediately before this one at the same time.

**Remus**

As he hurried to answer the loud knocks at his front door, Remus had been fully prepared to tease his roommate for neglecting to bring her keys with her when she stepped out that morning. Wiping his hands against a greasy rag, he flung open his front door…only to find an uncharacteristically sombre Sirius Black staring daggers at him.

“Hello,” he greeted uncertainly.

“Hello to you as well,” his best friend answered stiffly. “May I come in?”

“I…um…” Remus made a face at Sirius. “I don’t know. You’re being a bit…”

The other man developed an impatient expression.

“Harry tells me you won’t reply to his texts with anything meaningful. Ron doesn’t seem to know that Hermione’s been staying here. In case you’ve forgotten…”

Huffing in annoyance, Remus physically dragged his friend indoors. Glaring at his nosy next-door neighbour, he shut the door in Mrs. Zabini’s face.

“…she’s _my_ friend too. Actually, she’s _family_ ,” Sirius concluded. “Remus, what in the actual fuck is going on?”

Rubbing at his forehead, Remus wondered what he could possibly say that wouldn’t end up raising more alarms.

When he had taken Hermione home with him from the Hog’s Head, in light of everything she had revealed to him, Remus hadn’t expected her to be bubbly, or happy, or even cheerful.

It was the subtle things however, which took him by unwelcome surprise, and which fuelled his horrible suspicions.

For almost three weeks, he had observed with a sinking heart as Hermione shrunk away from doing anything that might have remotely been construed as obtrusive or intrusive. Indeed, the woman tiptoed around him as if he were liable to explode at any minute.

In the ten years he had known her, Hermione had never once behaved like some sort of shrinking violet. The woman took control of just about any situation and swung it to suit her vision…and usually, she did it with a huge smile upon her face.

“Your silence is making everyone wonder if something truly awful occurred with McLaggen,” Sirius’s dark eyes bored into him.

Throwing his rag over his left shoulder, Remus admitted, “I have my suspicions, but she’s not been very forthcoming, exactly, about anything that bastard might have done,”

“And what, pray, are these _suspicions_ of yours?” Sirius asked in a low, dangerous tone that spelled trouble for Hermione’s ex-husband. And probably a criminal suit against himself.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Remus answered firmly, though he felt extremely wretched in denying Sirius what his best friend so wanted to hear.

Over the past few days, Hermione had began slowly and finally, to emerge from her self-imposed shell. Her laughter came more easily now, and her smiles were no longer a rarity. The mere thought of anyone ruining all that progress - anyone including Sirius - was utterly unacceptable.

Very bluntly, he told Sirius, “You can stay for dinner if you want, but you have to promise me that you won’t pressure her for answers she might not be willing to give. I’m not joking, I _will_ toss you out on your arse if you break _any_ of my rules,”

The President, CEO and Owner of the business empire that was _Black Shipping_ sulked at Remus like the petulant child he truly was.

“I don’t like you very much right now,” Sirius informed him. “But fine - I will abide by your _asinine_ rules,”

Casting his eyes up to the ceiling, Remus wished like hell he didn’t feel as if he had somehow failed Hermione by not protecting her from that fuckhead McLaggen, when that arsehole had stepped into her life in the first place.

***

Remus spent most of dinner turning over in his mind, the little anecdote Hermione relayed when she had come in through the front door, particularly with regards to her experience at her latest rental viewing in Harlesden.

In his vivid imagination, Remus did his best to picture Hermione thriving in the middle of a crime-ridden and impoverished tenement. Every attempt ended with him dragging the woman back to his small townhouse, if only to prevent her from getting stabbed or shot, or otherwise hurt by some criminal lowlife.

Chewing on his slightly charred potatoes, Remus listened to the sound of her cheerful laughter and to the lilt of her voice as she conversed with Sirius.

“I will miss this,” Hermione informed the table as she directed her empty wine glass imperiously in his direction. “Being roommates with Remus has been absolutely lovely. Do you know, my glass has never set empty for more than two minutes since the moment I arrived?”

Lips twitching, Remus found his spirits lifting as he observed her familiar, bossy mannerisms. Obediently, he took her hint and poured her another generous serving of Rioja.

“It’s true isn’t it? I’m a terrific roommate,” he met her luminous smile with an answering grin of his own.

Determination began to solidify in Remus’s belly as he kept his gaze fixed on her animated expression. There was no way in hell he was going to let her relocate someplace frightening and squalid. He simply _couldn’t_. The thought of her becoming even further reduced due to her circumstances made his heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

Though…how was he supposed to stop her exactly, Remus wondered as he resumed his meal. As Harry put it, Hermione was a full grown woman who wasn’t about to let some man stop her from doing what she wanted…

No, he was going to need to be extremely clever with his next steps - clever and sneaky. There was no time for polite, respectful distance either, not when the stakes were so high.

Munching on his perfectly cooked pork, Remus caught a knowing glimmer in Sirius’s eyes.

“Oh, I’ll just _bet_ my friend over here has been trying to get you drunk,” the man-child smirked as he lifted his glass in a silent toast.

Scowling, Remus wondered what the hell Sirius was on about now. Clearing his throat, he pointed out, “Some of us need less help getting drunk than others, wouldn’t you agree?”

“If that’s a hint about my alcoholism, I’ll have you know, I won’t hear it,” the heir to the Black fortune joked. Turning to Hermione, he amended slyly, “Although if you find yourself needing any assistance at all, in getting properly sloshed, perhaps you’d like to come over to my place. I keep a very respectable bar, and I have a spare room too, as you probably recall. You should know, _my_ bed is _extremely_ comfortable, so if you ever want to spend the night…”

_Pillock._

“No,” Remus pronounced sharply.

“No?” his best friend smirked, and sounded as if he were enjoying himself immensely.

“What I mean is…” Remus began floundering in confusion as he considered his knee-jerk reaction towards Sirius; as he considered the spike of genuine anger he had experienced over the fact that the man sitting across from him had practically propositioned Hermione under his very nose. “Would anyone like some dessert?”

Oblivious to what was occurring right over her head, Hermione took another sip of her wine. “I’m going back tomorrow morning and I’m signing that lease. I’ve already sent an email to the realtor and she’ll meet me there at nine,”

“But…” Sirius’s smug smile faded as Hermione’s words sunk in. “Harlesden? Love, if you’re really this sick of Remus, I honestly wouldn’t mind having a roommate of my own for a few weeks until you find something better. Actually, I wouldn’t mind having a roommate, period. We could pretend you’re my wife, and you could chase off my one-night-stands in the morning. Some of them get terribly clingy…bloody hell, now that I’m thinking about it, it sounds fantastic doesn’t it? The two of us, married?”

Without meaning to, Remus loosed a small, audible growl. This time, Sirius flat-out ignored him.

“That is…that’s the worst idea in the world, is what it is,” Hermione grimaced in horror, though not before she cast Remus a quizzical stare in response to his weird behaviour. “I will not be a part of your horrible schemes, neither will I accept this sorry excuse of a marriage proposal. Anyway, I doubt I’d be able to afford better than Harlesden for a long time to come. At least, not until the divorce gets finalized,”

“If money’s the problem, you know I’d be more than happy to lend you…”

Before the concerned gazes of both men, Hermione’s expression hardened rapidly. Glancing hurriedly at Sirius, Remus could see plainly that his best friend was finding himself extremely startled by the abrupt change in their friend’s demeanour.

Unlike Remus, this was the first time Sirius was encountering such a volatile iteration of Hermione Granger.

“No. I’m not in the habit of accepting money from men as if I’m some _whore_ ,” she bit out furiously.

Her choice of words caused Remus to pale in rage, at the thought of why her mind would even go to such a place.

The kitchen fell deathly silent.

After a moment, Hermione sunk her face into her hands. Her voice was muffled as she said, “No, but thank you for your kind offer. I think it’s time I went to bed,”

“You haven’t finished your wine,” Sirius rasped, looking equally furious at the implications of her words.

The man wasn’t angry at _Hermione_.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good…”

“If you don’t drink it, Sirius will,” Remus reached gently for one of her hands. Twining his fingers against her own, he did his best to lend her what strength he could. “He tends to break my things when he gets pissed,”

“Fine,” she sighed, scrubbing at her face. The lines around her eyes aged her far beyond her years. “I’m…so sorry….”

Their visitor was smirking again as he observed the two roommates. To Remus’s relief, Sirius had also loosened his grip on his steak knife.

Hermione raised her glass in a toast and said firmly, “To my new flat and my new life,”

Keeping his mouth shut, Remus smiled fondly at her, revealing absolutely nothing of his inner machinations.

***

The next morning, a good half hour before Hermione’s alarm was due to go off, Remus was up and about. In the kitchen, the man went about the task of preparing breakfast, which consisted of toast, eggs, beans and several helpings of bacon.

Around seven, Hermione found him seated calmly at his place at the table, reading the morning news on his iPad. Looking up from an article about North Korea and their leader’s recent, insane proclamations, Remus smile genially at his roommate.

“Morning,” he greeted cheerfully, “Breakfast?”

“I was going to make myself some toast…” she stared at him in thinly veiled confusion. The woman’s curls were fighting their way out of her thick braid. “Are you ill? Why are you up so early?”

“That’s ridiculous,” he shook his head, pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about. “You know how much I enjoy my Saturdays,”

“Sleeping in,” she stated flatly. “You enjoy _sleeping in_ on Saturdays. There was that one time you kicked up a massive fuss because we all decided to have lunch at one in the _afternoon_ …”

“Alright yes,” he squawked indignantly as he rose to his feet. “I couldn’t sleep. Is that a ‘yes’ on the bacon and eggs?”

Hermione continued her intense scrutiny of him. After a moment however, she tilted her chin in acquiescence. Despite the disquiet she obviously felt, as Remus had anticipated, the temptation of fried fatty pork overruled all else in her mind.

“What are your plans for today?” she asked as she moved to pour herself a cup of coffee.

Rolling up his sleeves, Remus hurriedly put the next part of his plan in motion.

“I was thinking…maybe I could come with you to see your new place?” he suggested, as he started on the serious business of cooking breakfast. “I’m curious to know where you’re moving off to,”

“Why?” she questioned, stiffening ever so slightly.

Bacon began sizzling in an enamel pan. Hermione’s dark eyes fluttered shut as she inhaled deeply, the perfume of cooking pork fat.

“Why not?” he shrugged, cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. Carefully, he hid his triumphant smile.

“Are you being serious?” she demanded, opening her eyes.

“Alright, fine,” he sighed. “I’m bored, and I could use a drive around town to entertain me,”

She took another sip of her coffee. “It won’t be very exciting. I mean, not to someone like you anyway,”

Casting her a semi-offended look, he demanded, “Are you implying I’m a snob?”

“You did chalk George R. R. Martin up as a ‘mainstream hack’,” she teased.

“I might be compelled to change my opinion,” Remus was now genuinely aggrieved. “If only he hadn’t left his last book on such a bloody cliffhanger. Some of us want to know who takes the Iron Throne,”

“We can’t all be as invested in the fate of Jaime Lannister as you are,” Hermione giggled, clearly having shoved aside what misgivings she had in favour of drooling over the food he was plating up.

Mentally slapping himself on his back, Remus kept his voice even as he said, “But I want to _know_. Does he get murdered by Lady Stoneheart? Does he actually rescue Sansa? Will he _wed_ Sansa?”

“You’ve gone mad,” Hermione chortled she moved to set the table. “Those two have never exchanged a single word in five books,”

“You’ve not got a romantic bone in your body,” he informed her loftily, “Otherwise you’d see it too,”

The both of them bantered through breakfast before they climbed into her old, and very beat-up Toyota Corolla. Listening to the sputtering sound of its engines as the vehicle started up, privately, Remus wondered seriously, if dying in a flaming wreck was such a good idea, even for Hermione’s sake.

The Toyota was a death trap.

“The best part about this car,” Hermione said cheerfully, “Is that I doubt anyone would think to steal it, considering the condition it’s in. Even in my new neighbourhood, I think it’ll be quite safe from thieves and such,”

 _The woman wasn’t even listening to herself_ , Remus thought with a certain level of disbelief as he gazed at her determined profile.

“Sounds about right,” he muttered aloud as he forced a smile. Staring out the window, he continued to refine his strategy in his head. What faint thoughts he had entertained of abandoning Hermione to her fate, faded away to less than nothing.

***

The two of them arrived at the place Hermione intended to live in with five minutes to spare. Stepping out of her car, Remus shoved his hands into his pockets and stared up at the high-rise with a sinking sensation in the pit of his belly. The sides of the building - the parts of it not covered in graffiti - were painted a despairing brown, and the deep-set windows on every floor were barely present.

There were prisons in deepest Siberia, Remus was certain, that probably emitted more cheer.

“Did you want to stay down here to drink in the sight of the neighbourhood, or will you be coming up?” Hermione inquired sarcastically. Glancing about, she added a little more nervously, “I have some pepper spray if you’d like to stay. I just purchased it…”

“Nah, I’ll come up with you,” Remus shrugged, affecting an air of indifference as he began to follow her into the building. Climbing up the stairs, he frowned at the overpowering smell of mildew, and at the reddish smudges which lined the painted steps.

_Was that blood?_

“It’s supposed to be an up-and-coming neighbourhood,” Hermione started saying as they walked down an ill-lit hallway. “New businesses have been moving into the neighbourhood and…”

Apropos of nothing, Remus grabbed at Hermione’s shoulder, and hissed, “ _Roach!_ ”

“What? Where?” she leapt backwards, and slammed her body into his chest.

“It’s fine, it’s gone,” he said soothingly. Somewhere at the back of his head, it registered that having Hermione so close to his person felt unexpectedly…nice.

“I’m sure building management has pest control on speed-dial - old buildings tend to have the _occasional_ roach as you probably already know. Anyway, what is it you were telling me?”

Taking in her frightened expression, the man couldn’t help but wonder if he was doomed to a hellish afterlife, as punishment for the lies he was currently spinning.

But - in for a penny, in for a pound he supposed. Without quite registering his own actions, Remus set his hands at her waist. His fingers spread of their own accord towards the flare of her hips.

Gently, he prodded, “Hermione?”

“Right…” unenthusiastically, she pulled away from him.

To Remus’s immense confusion, the sudden lack of Hermione in his arms felt distinctly unsatisfying.

“There’s been several news reports covering the increasing gentrification of this area. Honestly, I’m lucky to be getting a place here, before…”

Someone started shouting down the hallway from behind a closed door. Expletives echoed down the corridor, followed by several loud thumps. In any other circumstance, Remus would have hastened to drag his friend away from what sounded like the makings of a dangerous brawl.

Understanding that such a course of action would only spur her into doing the opposite of what he was trying to achieve, Remus swallowed his instincts away.

“Right, move in before prices spike,” he nodded. Mentally, he tried to work out why he wanted nothing more than to tug at Hermione until she was once more, resting against the planes of his own frame. “Very good idea. Which one of these units are you moving into?”

“It’s…um…”

Fluorescent lamps flickered overhead, casting the corridor with the sort of garish light people only ever saw in horror films from the late nineties. The continued screaming of the floor’s residents only added to the ghastly ambience.

God but this was working out better than Remus could ever have hoped for…if only he wasn’t swamped by overwhelming befuddlement.

“It's right beside…”

“Where all the yelling is happening?” he asked innocently. Hesitating only a split second, he grasped urgently at her arm and did as he so craved - he pulled her back towards him.

The smell of her shampoo was intoxicating, he thought dizzily.

“What?” she squeaked.

“I thought it was another…you know what, forget it, my eyes are playing tricks on me in this light,” he rasped as he fought off the temptation to simply whisk Hermione away anyway. Back towards her car. Back towards his house, and his bedroom…and his bed.

“Let’s just get this over with shall we?” Hermione voice was strained. Absorbing her words, Remus did his utmost not to frown in disappointment and anxiety.

Following close at her heel, he waited glumly behind his (soon-to-be-ex?) roommate as she knocked at the entrance of unit three-four-two. The door opened after a moment, revealing a sweetly smiling woman, standing beside a hulking lug of a man.

Considering the cheap pink suit and the garish lipstick, Remus assumed uncharitably that the female of the duo was the realtor. That is, the witch who would entrap Hermione within this…

Actually, the place itself really wasn’t that terrible, Remus reflected with a start. Sure, the bedsit could use a fresh coat of paint. Yes, the mirror on the far side of the wall was really quite an eyesore, but he supposed it wasn’t anything an artfully placed poster couldn’t rectify.

“I hear you’re interested in renting this unit,” the massively proportioned man said, as he raked beady eyes over Hermione’s petite form.

Those same eyes flicked resentfully towards a bristling Remus, who immediately withdrew any and all positive sentiments he had mustered up for the small unit they were all standing in.

“No couples,” the large man grunted.

“I’m the only one moving in,” Hermione said quickly, shaking the man’s hand. “And you are…”

“The Landlord,” the man puffed his chest out. “My name is Greg. With me around, you never have to worry about plumbing, or fixing anything. And if you ever lose your key, you can always come around to my place. I have a key for every single one of these units,”

“That’s…comforting,” Hermione blinked, before turning to the realtor. “Shall we discuss the terms?”

“Most certainly,” the endlessly-smiling realtor tittered.

As the two females walked away, Remus suffered the hostile glare of Greg the Landlord with his most scathing mask firmly in place.

“Are you her boyfriend?” the man grunted after a moment.

“What’s it to you?” Remus demanded testily.

“She’s very pretty,” Greg replied, smiling in a way that made Remus want to claw his own eyes out. “A girl like that can get in a lot of trouble in a place like this. Might be she’ll need someone to watch over her,”

Deciding enough was enough, Remus lifted his voice and called out, “Hermione?”

“What?” she answered immediately. The woman’s hand was poised to sign some document laid out on a ratty dining table.

“Hermione, we’re leaving. Don’t sign a damned thing,”

“Remus…” she sounded so incredibly lost.

“I just saw an entire fucking family of roaches creeping into a crack in the ceiling. And I’m fairly certain there’s a rat problem,” he improvised desperately.

“Are you sure?” she set the pen down.

“What are you…” Greg frowned at him. “There’s no…”

“Hermione, please…” Remus met her gaze pleadingly. “This place isn’t for you and we both know it,”

“But I…” she looked desperately towards the now-frowning realtor.

“Roaches. Loads of roaches. Bushels. You know you can’t ever get rid of them either,” he babbled nonsensically. “They get in your ears when you’re sleeping. I watched a documentary on it so I know it’s true. Roaches also multiply in the hundreds and the thousands, and depending on the species…”

“Fine,” she threw the pen down and hurried to his side. “I don’t need a science lesson,”

“Now you listen here,” Greg snarled. “My building is clean as a whistle…”

Neither of them stopped to listen.

Clasping tightly at Hermione’s hand, Remus practically sprinted out of the damned building with the woman in tow as if he were Orpheus leading Eurydice from the depths of Hades.

Unlike _that_ mythical idiot however, Remus had no intention of relinquishing Hermione into the shadowy recesses of Greg The Landlord’s domain.

Climbing into her car, Hermione waited just long enough for him to clip into his seat, before she started the engine and sped off. After a few minutes, she burst out laughing and she didn’t stop. There was something joyful in her mirth, as if she had been spared the executioner’s block at the very last second.

Immersed in their shared moment of happiness, Remus joined her in her laughter. Turning to bask in the warmth of Hermione’s bright smile, a wave of intense fondness washed over him. Unthinkingly, his gaze dropped to the inviting curve of her bow lips.

Without any warning, realization dawn on the man like a bright and unrelenting sun. Suddenly, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the man came to understand exactly how blind he had been for such a very long time.

“Thank you,” she told him. “Thank you thank you _thank_ you! I didn’t want to sign the lease but I felt as if I had no other choice. You have no idea how happy I am that I didn’t end up doing it. Thank you!”

“You’re welcome,” he croaked, comprehending at last, what Sirius and Harry had both been trying very clumsily to tell him.

It would have been nice if those two had tried using their big-people words, he thought, although simultaneously, he found himself longing to find out what those lovely lips of hers would feel like when pressed up against his own.

“What would you like to do for the rest of the day?” she asked with a short sigh, wiping at the corners of her eyes. “It’s early, and you said you were bored,”

_I’d like to get a lobotomy please. Or at least, I should get my head checked._

“Whatever you want, I’ll be happy to tag along,” he answered aloud, wondering how he managed to sound so normal when his world had just been swept out from under his feet.

Not knowing what to do next, Remus leaned back in his seat and focused on the simple act of breathing.

“Don’t come crying when you realize how dull I really am,” she warned. “Though it is such a lovely day…how do you feel about an early lunch? We’ll leave the car back at your place first of course. We can see where the rest of the day takes us if you’re up for it,”

“That sounds…” _heavenly_ , “Heavenly,”

Gulping away his nerves, Remus smiled shakily at the woman was who about to guide him into the unknown. Silently, he pondered…

_How the hell was he going to solve this one?_

***

“This place has a small gymnasium,” she told him on Wednesday night as she took down another phone number to dial in the morning. The two of them were seated on his sofa, staring at their laptops. “I suppose that’s a good idea, otherwise I’d never exercise,”

“Or - you could simply run loops in a park,” Remus replied as he tapped out Javascript. “Like the park we have around the corner. It’s almost pretty in the summer, and practically magical in the wintertime - you can’t see the empty syringes under all the dead leaves, and it’s much too cold for the local teens to have unprotected sex on the benches,”

On the telly, a rerun of an American sitcom played. A character named Jeff pretended pathetically, that he wasn’t desperate to for the affections of a far-younger classmate, the cute one named Alex, or Annie or Annabelle…

“Inviting as all that sounds, running seems so…exhausting,” Hermione said absently, scrolling onwards to the next listing. “I can’t afford it anyway. The landlord wants far more than I can spare,”

“Right,” Remus frowned as he tested his new code; nothing parsed.

“Oh! This one has a rooftop garden!” she exclaimed, sounding quite enthralled.

“ _I_ have a garden. Or more accurately, I have a small plot of weeds,” he observed mildly as he picked up the remote control and changed the channel. Eventually, he landed on a documentary about the mating habits of sea snails.

“Did you want another glass of wine?” he asked, satisfied that he was no longer watching a television show about a man making an arse of himself for the sake of a woman half his own age.

“Only if you’re getting yourself one,” she waved absently at him.

A few feet away, the documentary on shagging snails ended.

Doctor Who started - and it just so happened to be a repeat episode featuring Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman riding through space in a glamourous train carriage. The two actors would _insist_ on casting each other smouldering, longing glances, that made it seem as if they were constantly on the verge of tearing off the other’s clothing.

The fact that this show was officially labelled _children’s_ entertainment confounded the hell out of Remus.

Putting aside his work with a frustrated sigh, he padded into the kitchen, trying to talk some sense into himself. What he was about to suggest aloud was a very bad idea. Very, very bad, and very stupid, and likely, he’d get himself quite bruised in the process when all was said and done.

From the living room, Hermione called, “This one in Peckham is within my budget! The pictures look alright… _ish_. Alright-ish, ”

Wincing, Remus poured the both of them more wine and wandered back out. Handing Hermione a glass of Pinot Grigio, he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. After half a minute, the fact that he had yet to sit back down on the sofa finally caught his roommate’s attention.

“What’s wrong?” she inquired with deep concern. Rising quickly to her feet, she reached up and slapped a hand to his forehead. “Do you have fever? Are you feeling faint?”

“No,” he huffed as he batted her hands away. Taking a deep breath, he said in a rush, “Hermione, why don’t you stop looking for a new place to live? Why don’t you just pay _me_ rent instead, and we’ll call it a day?”

“What?” she stared blankly at him.

“Pay me rent and live here. With me, in this house,” Remus continued. He was very proud of the way his voice wasn’t shaking at all. “It’s the perfect solution. There’s a tube station nearby…well, _nearby-ish_. The room comes furnished, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed, and you’ll have a roommate who won’t try to murder you in your sleep.”

“Remus…” her eyes were wide and dark.

Hastily, he added, “ And…and if you want to bring your cat with you…well that’s alright too,”

“All that sounds wonderful,” Hermione wrung anxiously at her hands. “But you weren’t actually in the market for a roommate before I showed up. This seems so…”

“Now that I’ve been living with a roommate, I find myself quite pleased with our arrangement,” he countered. “Besides, far be it from me to say ‘no’ to an extra few hundred quid a month. Or more of your cooking,”

“A few hundred…” Hermione sputtered. “Have you gone quite mad? You should be charging me much more that that,”

“Hermione…” he took a big sip of wine and set his half-emptied glass down on the coffee table. “You already live here. There’s no reason why we can’t just keep… _going_ ,”

“A lot of my belongings are still stored at the old place, and the closets in my room upstairs…” Remus grinned at the way Hermione had unconsciously worded her sentence. “…aren’t hardly big enough to store all my things. My books, my clothes, my shoes…”

“There’s storage under the stairs, and a half-used closet out front. We can fit one more bookshelf beside the…beside _your_ bed. _Also_ , if you want, you’re free to do as you please with the back garden, because god knows I’m a shite gardener,” he clasped tightly at her shoulders. “Hermione, your excuses are worth less than nothing,”

The woman’s cheeks flushed with growing excitement. “When I start dating again, I suppose I could just place a sock on my door knob to let you know I’ve got ‘company’…and you could do the same! It’ll be like we’re _proper_ roommates!”

Something wrenched painfully in Remus’s chest at the sound of those words, but stoically, he managed to keep on smiling. After all, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t already considered such a thing.

It was only to be expected that one day, the woman in front of him would want to start rebuilding her life all over again.

“We’re all adults,” he forced himself to say quite casually. Averting his eyes, he reached down for the rest of his beverage and proceeded to gulp it down. “Just don’t throw an orgy in the living room and we’ll be fine,”

Without any warning, he found himself with an armful of woman, and a face full of wild curls.

“You are…oh Remus, you’re a better friend than I deserve,” she exclaimed enthusiastically as she peppered his face with kisses. “You should know, I would never, _ever_ host an orgy without inviting you,”

“Oh alright. I suppose I’ll allow it,” he muttered resignedly as he tightened his hold around her. “Lucky me,"

***

There was a reason why Sirius was truly the best friend a man could ever hope to have, and part of that reason had to do the way he poured whiskey. In decades of friendship, not once had the man ever measured the size of his pours.

“So you actually went and asked her at last,” Sirius sounded unsurprised as he pushed Remus a massive tot of Scotch. “I was wondering how many more weeks it was going to take before you got around to it,”

“I couldn’t let her move into one of those disasters,” Remus said gruffly. Gratefully, he picked up his tumbler and took a sip.

“Are we just going to pretend that’s all there is to it?” Sirius questioned. The man leaned against his counter with his arms crossed.

“Pretend what?” Remus asked obstinately.

Sirius reached for his own drink as he asked, “Have you two talked about what’s going to happen the day she decides to start sleeping with other people?”

“As a matter of fact,” Remus’s fingers tightened around his glass. “As a matter of fact, yes we have,”

“Does this mean you’re fine with the idea of Hermione fucking someone else who, well…isn’t _you_?” Sirius asked bluntly.

Remus’s grey eyes narrowed angrily.

“I have no idea what you mean,”

“You do realize,” Sirius said carefully. “Hermione’s not a child anymore. And you don’t have to keep flogging yourself for what happened with Tonks. None of that was ever really your fault,”

In one statement, his best friend managed to dredge up all the pain he had been actively repressing for the past three years. Scowling resentfully, Remus rescinded his earlier goodwill, and wondered if perhaps he didn’t need better friends after all.

Though at his age, fuck if he knew where he was going to find a plurality of Sirius-replacements.

“Look at you,” Sirius sighed. “You swore to me once that you’d never be tied to a desk. You told me you were the master of your own fate,”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Remus gulped down more whiskey.

The other man looked at him almost pityingly as he continued, “Remus, not once in the past three years did you try to meet anyone new. And that’s not all - you went and found yourself an actual _job_ in a very, very dull office. Until Hermione showed up at your door…”

“A bit of an overstatement there. She didn’t just ‘show up’,” Remus retorted. “And I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that I might _like_ my job,”

“…you refused to eat anything that didn’t come out of a take-out container. Hell, the reason you even deigned to walk into the Hog’s Head the night you found her is testament to how far you’re willing to go to punish yourself,”

“I ruined her life,” Remus said flatly. “Tonks wouldn’t have died if I didn’t…Christ. She’s dead because I put a baby in her, and that child’s gone too. _Before_ she died, she lived knowing her husband could never love her. What kind of man does that make me?”

“For fuck’s sake,” Sirius rubbed tiredly at his face. “You tried to do right by her. You married her and gave her your name the moment you found out she was pregnant. Granted, the marriage was probably ill-advised to say the least, but you only had the best of intentions,”

“You know what they say about _those_ ,” Remus snorted.

“Fine,” Sirius threw up his free hand in resignation. “Be that as it may, I still think you’ve overclocked on your penance. Personally, I think its time we talked about the elephant in the room which has been stomping through our lives over the past few years…though I have a feeling Hermione wouldn’t appreciate being compared to an elephant,”

“Why are you so obsessed with Hermione?” Remus demanded, still doing his best to pretend he had no idea what his best friend was talking about.

“Remus…” Sirius sounded frustrated. “For fuck’s sake, stop acting stupid,”

Picking up his glass of whiskey, Remus stared down at the amber liquid as if he might find actual answers at the bottom of his drink.

“Do you remember that Christmas you bought Hermione that ridiculously expensive book about artwork throughout the Middle Ages, or something equally dull?” Sirius asked him. “She saw it in a shop window back in _September_ , and told Harry she wished she could have afforded the damn thing. She wasn’t even speaking to you. _You_ just happened to overhear that conversation,”

He did remember that Christmas. Rather well, actually.

Hermione had ripped apart the bright, shiny wrapping paper he had painstakingly put together, and had gazed at the book as if she had never seen anything so beautiful. Remus on the other hand…he remembered finding himself mesmerized by the sweetness of her smile and the bright flush in her cheeks…

“That’s _literally_ not the book I got her that Christmas. Though…wait…why and how do _you_ remember the way that whole thing went?” Remus asked as a tiresome flare of jealousy reared its ugly head somewhere deep within his chest.

The idea that Sirius himself might be a little too _aware_ when it came to the subject of Hermione sat very badly with Remus’s sensibilities.

“Oh Jesus…no Remus, don’t give me that look like you’re going to tear my throat out. I’m not in love with her. It was _Harry_ who clued me in,” Sirius continued, “That was when she was what, twenty? twenty-one? That sodding prick McLaggen hadn’t wormed his way into her life yet,”

“Oh fuck,” Remus swore, squeezing his eyes shut. “Oh fuck,”

“You’re joking. You’re not really that thick… _are_ you?” his best friend seemed astounded.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Remus asked in a voice filled with misery.

“How could you not have figured this out on your own?” Sirius loosed a bark of surprised laughter as he spoke.

“I’ve been such a daft idiot,” Remus moaned as he buried his face in his hands, even as his supposed-best friend continued laughing at his expense.

Eventually, when he regained his composure, Sirius pointed out rather solemnly, “In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve been given a second chance. Hermione’s no longer with McLaggen, and you’ve certainly arranged matters so she’s almost constantly within five feet of you…really, it sounds like you’re finally sorting this mess out,”

“I took her home because she had nowhere else to go. I didn’t invite her into my home to take advantage of her,” Remus said immediately, raising his eyes to stare blearily at the other man. “This whole conversation is ridiculous. She’s too young for me, too _vulnerable_. I couldn’t…”

“You’re a widower, and she’s a divorcee. Or she’s about to be, anyway,” his friend interjected. “I have to be honest - when you first told me about your arrangement with Hermione, it crossed my mind that the whole thing might not have been… _right_. But then it occurred to me that the both of you are in extremely different places in your lives now, then you were even five years ago,”

“You’re not listening,” Remus shook his head vehemently. “She’s got her whole life ahead of her. She doesn’t need some washed up old man messing up her life,”

“Gentle reminder, you insensitive prat - we’re the same age, you and I, and I am certainly not _old_ ,” Sirius sounded affronted.

“Fine, not old,” Remus amended stubbornly. “How’s this? Hermione doesn’t need a man who can’t for the life of him, sort his own shit out. Does _that_ sound more reasonable?”

Sirius pinched his forehead. “I don’t know why I try. You’re impossible. Completely and utterly impossible,”

The two men drank in silence for a minute, each filled with dismay, but for different reasons.

Then, Remus’s expression brightened. “It’s perfectly obvious what the solution is, to cure me of this temporary insanity,”

“Remus…” Sirius sounded wary.

“ _I_ need to start dating again,” he declared.

“Oh _brilliant_. That’s brilliant that is,” his best friend choked out as he poured himself another large drink. “This is going to end so well,”

“It _is_ brilliant,” Remus bounced to his feet. “Just you wait and see. Hermione and I are going to be great pals, and we’re going to go on double dates and everything.”

“No hang on, before you go off and start planning your joint weddings…”

“The roommate solution is absolutely _fantastic_ on so many levels. I mean, look, it’s already opened my eyes to a problem which needs rectification. Bloody hell, but I’m a clever man aren’t I?”

Sirius drank deeply.

“Oh and Hermione’s just texted. She’s making me dinner,” Remus smiled slightly maniacally as he picked up his buzzing phone. “This roommate solution I’ve devised is perfect. Not only do I get to help a friend out, but I’m also getting a home-cooked meal every other day…”

“I’m sure the inventors of the Zeppelin shared those very same sentiments,” his best friend said dryly. “At least until the Hindenburg you know…exploded,”

“That explosion resulted in a fucking amazing band name for a fucking amazing band,” Remus said cheerfully, picking up his laptop case. “I’m off to have dinner with my roommate. Have fun being a lonely git,”

“ _Lonely?_ I’ll have you know that I’m having dinner with a very nice young man in an hour,” Sirius sniffed. “His name is Adrian, and he’s got a body like you wouldn’t believe. Or at least I hope he does, underneath all those tight jerseys…”

“What happened to Daphne?” Remus paused in his steps.

“I’m seeing her next week. She looks smashing too in _her_ tight tees,” the other man shrugged. “I’m not sure I see your point,”

Snorting, Remus walked out, doing his best to convince himself that everything would work out as perfectly as he had envisioned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, for anyone still reading my stuff, I'm feeling a compulsion towards writing the time travel segment of this Trope series. 
> 
> I mean. I feel bad for like, being a compulsive poster in recent history...
> 
> Update to my UAT results: I only received the notification for the earlier chapter posted.


	8. Interlude

**Interlude**

Hermione returned from work, still getting herself accustomed to the notion that she wasn’t simply a houseguest in Remus’s home. The keys she held in her hand weren’t just ‘spare’ keys - they were _her_ keys. 

The second bedroom upstairs, the house she was currently wandering through…all of it was to be her home for the foreseeable future. There would be no more drifting about for the next little while, no more weird flats and even weirder potential landlords, flatmates or realtors.

She was about to start paying rent to someone, about to jumpstart the rest of her life once again - and there was profound satisfaction to be had in that knowledge. 

Gazing upon endless rows of bookshelves in the small living room, Hermione found herself trying to piece together, all the joyful hours she had _already_ spent in this veritable library.

Running her fingers over the beloved spines of several tomes, easily, she conjured memories of Harry and Ron fighting over the tv remote, even as she curled up beside them on the sofa with a new novel in hand.

Unbidden, her thoughts drifted to all the times when Remus and her had sat together on his grey sofa, trading thoughts on just about every conceivable subject under the sun.

In her mind’s eye, she could plainly see the golden hues of his sandy blonde hair under the filtered light of the summer sun. With stunning ease, she pictured clearly the way his grey eyes crinkled at the edges whenever he smiled…

_And what a smile he owned_ , a traitorous voice whispered in her head. _It was a smile to build a kingdom of dreams upon._

Shaking off her futile meanderings, Hermione sank down onto the tweed sofa in the middle of Remus’s parlour. Firmly, she reminded herself that this state of things wasn’t truly permanent. One day she would have to pack her bags and leave…

Still, smiling dreamily in tired contentment, Hermione closed her eyes and allowed herself to finally relax for the first time in literal years.

***

Stepping into his living room, Remus froze as he set eyes upon a peacefully slumbering Hermione. 

The woman was curled up on his sofa like she belonged there, in his parlour, in his house…in his life, as a matter of fact.

Dusk had already fallen, and the world was slipping into darkness. In that moment however, there was just enough light left, for him to make out the contours of her face, the shape of her lips, the tilt of her brow.

Slumping against the doorframe, Remus would gladly have remained rooted in place forever, if it meant he could keep the privilege of gazing upon this lovely sight for the rest of his days. 

Though admittedly…a large part of him _yearned_ to cross the distance laying between himself and Hermione. 

It would have been so easy to wake her with a kiss; to rouse her by running his fingers over the rounded curve of her smooth cheek. In his vivid imagination, he saw himself tucking her slight body against his own as she wound her arms around his neck…he saw her smiling up at him in welcome, as she drew him down into her warm embrace.

Had he really, truly been so blind all these years, not to have understood what it was… _who_ it was he wanted? When did all of this start, anyway? When did she become the woman who embodied _everything_ to him?

On his sofa, Hermione stirred, and the spell shifted, but it didn’t break. Blinking, he coughed deliberately to signal his presence. 

“Remus?” she murmured, rubbing at her eyes. 

“Yeah,” he backed away slowly. “I’ll be…I’ll be down in a moment,”

Like a massive coward, Remus fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this is the last we'll be hearing from Remus for a few chapters, though he's certainly in Hermione's sphere for the next few sections.


	9. Planting Season: Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Mentions of abusive dynamics, abusive spousal behaviour

**Hermione**

**Five Years Ago**

The party was winding down, and Hermione was feeling extremely pleased at the current state of the world.

For one thing, she had just accepted a job offer from _Patronus Tech_ , and the role came with a salary and benefits and…well… _everything_. For another, she was thrilled that Harry and Ginny had finally gotten around to snogging each other’s brains out - which the two were currently enthusiastically doing on a sofa not ten feet away.

There was no way on earth she would have been able to deal with another year of longing glances, heated looks and frankly, a lot of whinging from _both_ Harry and Ginny about their so-called _unrequited affections_.

In fact, another month and she would have checked herself into a mental hospital. How it was possible for two people to be so bloody oblivious for literally years, Hermione would never know.

“Don’t you think it’s just a smidge disrespectful what Harry’s doing?” Ron grumbled as he stopped by her side. “I’m right _here_. And so are another two of her brothers. Sure, Percy doesn’t have the stones to put a stop to this disgusting display. And Charlie hasn’t said anything outright, but I can tell he’s not pleased about it. Very not pleased,”

Hermione elbowed her best friend in his ribs. Hard.

“ _Ow?_ ” Ron said reproachfully.

“Don’t be such a wet blanket. Neither of your brothers care. You’re the only one who lives under some archaic rock, where for some reason, you think you have to preserve your sister’s honour, or whatever,”

“She’s young, impressionable, and innocent,” Ron sniffed.

Silently, Hermione wondered how much Ginny would kill her, if she told Ron all about the rather scandalous sex-ventures his baby sister had been enjoying over the course of the past few years.

Perhaps she could enlighten him about the time Ginny had stripped herself down to nothing, in full view of every last camper in the Forest of Dean. She had done it on a silly dare, and everyone had found it funny at the time. Poor Ron hadn’t been able to make the trip because of a bad flu, and thus, had missed the moment when Ginny threw her knickers straight at a beet-red Harry’s face.

Taking a sip of Carlsberg, Hermione decided the story could wait for the next time Harry decided to be an annoying pain in her arse.

“Don’t look now, but your not-so-secret admirer is coming over here,” Ron groaned. “Did you want me to get rid of him?”

Something hot and not-unpleasant crawled across her neck and face, as Hermione flitted her dark eyes in Cormac’s direction.

“No,” she ducked her head, suddenly feeling uncharacteristically shy.

“I mean, I could tell him…wait. Hold on a second…” Ron turned to her with an expression of abject horror. “What do you mean ‘ _No?_ ’”

“I mean…” Hermione took a deep breath, “Ronald, there’s a chance I might have gone on a date with Cormac. And by that I mean several dates. And by that, I mean we’ve been seeing each other for two months,”

The man in question paused to chat with a departing party-goer. Deliberately, Hermione kept her gaze fixed on Ron, who was paling very noticeably in response to her not-quite-graceful confession.

“You’re not serious. That bloke’s been harassing you for years. _You_ told me you thought he was a fuckboy with more muscles than brain cells,”

“I’ve gotten to know him a little better recently,” Hermione’s grip tightened around the green bottle she was holding. “He’s actually…he’s actually very sweet. People do grow up you now,”

“You mean he finally wore you down,” her ruddy-headed companion curled his bottom lip in disgust. “God but he’s such a stalker. And an arsehole at that. Jesus, do you remember what a right prick he was the year I failed tryouts?”

“Ron,” Hermione took a long sip of her lacklustre brew. Summoning her composure, she said, very patiently, “I like Cormac…and I think it’s quite likely he’ll be hanging around for awhile,”

“That’s a _very_ nice thing to overhear,”

Mortified, Hermione looked over to her right.

Cormac grinned back at her with undisguised affection.

“I intend to hang around for _more_ than a little while,” he grasped lightly at her wrist and stepped in close. “Weasley, if you have a problem with me being Hermione’s boyfriend, then please, kindly go away,”

Snapping his jaw shut with an audible click, Ron stormed off in a loud huff.

“Could you _try_ to be nice to him please?” Hermione sighed. “He is my best friend after all,”

“First of all, I used the word ‘please’. Second, he was the one who didn’t even bother saying ‘hello’ to me. Honestly Hermione, I don’t know why you hang about with Ronald Weasley,” Cormac huffed. “Harry, I understand. Ginny Weasley, absolutely. Ronald’s a bit…”

“Don’t,” Hermione warned. “ _Again_ , he’s my best friend and…”

Before she could finish her thought, Cormac had his lips pressed firmly against her own. As she melted into his embrace, Hermione’s aggravation melted away into so much vapour.

“I fully intend on keeping you Hermione Granger,” he murmured after a while. “Out of all the women I’ve ever met, you’re the best and the brightest…and you know us McLaggens. We won’t settle for anything less than best,”

Smiling up at him, Hermione found Cormac’s attentions bearable indeed.

***

**Present Day**

Hermione could not find her house keys.

It shouldn’t have been possible, but there it was - she couldn’t find her keys.

All around her keyboard, her monitor, and her message-laden smart phone, artefacts from the depths of her purse had been laid out into neat rows.

Here were business cards she collected at some ancient job fair from five hundred years ago. There was a tube of sweets she purchased the week before, on her way into the office. Wallet, spare change, charging cables, Ron’s hideous watch for some reason…

Everything was there, except the keys that would let her in through the front door of the house she still technically shared with Cormac.

Over the course of the past three years, Hermione had become practically compulsive in her efforts to ensure that her house keys were always within reach. Walking around town or sitting down in restaurants, occasionally, she would tap absently at her belongings, if only to hear that soft jingle, to assure herself that all was right within her universe.

Now however…now those stupid things were nowhere in sight.

“What’s all this?” Severus asked as he ambled past her desk. The man’s tie was slightly askew, and he appeared - as usual - slightly murderous.

“Are you having a rummage sale?” he asked sarcastically, stopping in his tracks. “Or do you simply find chaos comforting?”

“No, I’m…” Hermione swallowed. “I was looking for something,”

Severus eyed her with an unreadable expression. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his tailored trousers, he observed lamely, “Maybe you left it somewhere…whatever it is you’re looking for,”

“It would be very odd if I did,” Hermione blinked up at him, realizing with sinking clarity what she needed to do in order to fix her problem.

“Granger…” Severus paused.

“Yes?” she kept her voice even.

“I know it’s none of my business but…you are aware of course, that _Patronus Tech_ offers all of us a budget for…for um…for talking to someone. Professional, that is. Someone professional,” Severus’s face twisted as if those words tasted unpleasant in his mouth.

“Yes,” Hermione nodded politely. Frankly, she couldn’t help but wonder why her prat of a manager was suddenly taking such an unexpected interest in her life. Granted, she hadn’t exactly been his most stellar employee in recent weeks…but even at her worst, she still did a better job than most.

Severus’s eyes squeezed shut. He opened his mouth.

“I used to experiment a bit with certain substances. I’m not saying it was a _good_ habit, and certainly, I _may_ have over-indulged at times. However, I _will_ say that it’s all a matter of balance, and not letting those types of habits affect larger aspects of your overall life. All-in-all, if done properly - and safely - substances can actually be quite a bit of fun, and…”

“I’m not doing _drugs_ if that’s what you’re inferring,” Hermione stated in horror, interrupting Severus’s increasingly disturbing monologue. Rising to her feet, frantically, she cast her eyes about the office, desperately hoping no one had overheard the ludicrous conversation she had somehow become enmeshed in.

Thankfully, most of her teammates had stepped out to lunch. A few desks over, Luna was bopping along to Drake underneath a pair of massive, neon pink headphones; occasionally, she mumbled, “…do you love me, are you riding, say you’ll never ever leave…”

Immeasurably relieved, Hermione swung her gaze back towards a wide-eyed Severus.

“If you must know, I’m simply negotiating a very difficult separation between myself and my _ex_ -husband,”

A long, uncomfortable silence ensued.

Wearing an uncharacteristically sheepish expression, Severus muttered, “The first part is…still relevant. The bit about talking to someone I mean,”

“Are _you_ offering?” Hermione’s lips curved into a small smirk.

“ _Fuck_ no,” he quirked a half-smile at her. For a moment, Severus seemed so disturbingly human, Hermione wondered if he might pass the Turing Test after all. “You’re still taking the rest of the week off yeah?”

“Yes,” her smile faded. “I think so,”

“Good.” he nodded. “Good,”

Spinning on his heel, he strode away as quickly as he could.

Sighing, Hermione turned her attention back towards the organized mess she had created. Steeling her resolve, she snatched up her mobile phone and hurried towards the closest stairwell.

Alone in an ill-lit stair landing, Hermione hesitated for a brief second. Then, she tapped at a small, green button on her touch screen.

The phone rang exactly once before Cormac answered her call. He sounded breathless, as if he had just run a race. “Hermione?”

“Hello,” she greeted.

Instead of responding in kind, he demanded, “When are you coming home?”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Hermione answered, “I’m not. Not the way you mean, at any rate,”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cormac’s voice was taking on that rough note which implied he was about to start raising his voice at any moment.

“I’ve found a new place to live,” she crossed an arm over her chest. “Cormac, you should know - I’ve retained a divorce attorney. She’ll be in touch with you very soon. Probably before the end of the week as a matter of fact…”

“You’re serious,” Cormac interrupted, sounding genuinely shocked. “You’re actually going through with this,”

“I need to come by to pick up my things,” she pressed on as if he hadn’t spoken. Cringing, she explained, “I think I’ve lost my keys. Do you think perhaps, you could leave a spare key under that loose brick by the back door so I can get in tomorrow? I’ll be gone before you get home, I swear. I’m only going to pack my books and clothes…so you understand, I don’t intend on contesting anything. Not alimony, not the property…the house is completely yours, along with almost everything that’s currently in it…”

“No.”

Counting to ten, Hermione stared up at the speckled ceiling. “No?”

“No,” Cormac repeated sharply. “You’re not coming back into my house,”

“Actually, you’ll find that the house is still legally under _both_ our names,” Hermione’s temper gave.

“I fail to see how that matters,” Cormac sniped.

“You’re being a fucking child,” she retorted as she slipped into old patterns without a second thought.

“I’m a child? You’re the one who can’t see past _one_ fucking mistake!” he retorted. “You’re not coming into my house, and I’m not signing any divorce papers,”

“Cormac, you know it wasn’t just _one_ mistake,”

It was too late however. The line was already dead.

Clutching her phone towards her chest, Hermione recalled a time when she had been so dogged in her belief that Cormac McLaggen had been the _sensible_ choice. He had been devoted, and affectionate; he had stood up proudly beside her, and told her that she had been the only woman for him, just as he was the only man for her.

Stifling away her frustrated sobs - because if she started crying now, she wouldn’t fucking stop - the woman straightened her skirt with her free hand and tweaked at her blouse. Brushing back her curls, she straightened her spine and pushed through the door leading back into the office.

“Granger,” Severus said softly the moment she stepped through.

His unexpected presence caused Hermione first to startle, and then to stumble. Before she could right herself, Severus had her arm caught in a steadying hold.

“Granger, are you…are you ok?” he asked. The man’s dark eyes were filled with sincere concern.

“Were you _eavesdropping_?” she hissed as she wrenched herself from his grasp.

Curling his fingers regretfully around thin air, Severus’s voice was strained as he explained, “I didn’t mean to, I swear. I was passing by and I heard you…I heard you shouting. Grang… _Hermione_ , please…tell me what I can do to help. I’d be more than happy to blacken a few eyes for you, if that’s what it takes to…”

“Severus, if there’s nothing else, I’d like to get back to work,” she interrupted. She couldn’t summon the requisite energy to be professional or courteous just then, or even, to feel any sort of humiliation at the knowledge that her private life had accidentally been put on display.

Not waiting on his dismissal, Hermione turned on her heel and swept away.

***

The moment she stepped through the front door of her new home, Hermione sprinted up the stairs as quickly as her pencil skirt would allow. Hurrying towards her room, she tossed her laptop bag and purse onto her neatly made bed.

Turning to her still relatively empty wardrobe, she began tearing through all her belongings as if her very life depended on it. Determinedly, she scoured through her pockets and her bags.

Casting her eyes towards the small, rosewood drawers tucked underneath her bedroom window, Hermione pulled out all of its shelves, and spilled out a sparse collection of t-shirts, bras and pants onto her neatly made bed. Meticulously, she rifled through every last item in sight.

Half an hour later, and empty-handed despite her best efforts, Hermione released a small sob as she ran her fingers through her snarled hair.

“Hermione?”

Tilting her chin, Hermione found Remus standing at her doorway, staring in surprise at the chaotic scene she had inadvertently created.

“This isn’t…” she started weakly. “I’ve not gone mad, I promise,”

Striding into her bedroom, Remus reached out and grasped firmly at her shaking hands. To Hermione’s shame, hot tears began to gather at the corners of her eyes.

“What’s going on?” he asked in a low voice. “What’s happened? Hermione, please…”

“I can’t find my house keys,” her voice cracked as she fell backwards onto the edge of the bed. Seemingly unwilling to relinquish his hold on her, Remus followed her every move, step-for-step. Falling to one knee, he gazed imploringly into her eyes.

“I can’t find the keys to my old place. I took the rest of the week off to move the rest of my belongings…but I can’t find my keys, and Cormac…Cormac told me he won’t let me back in,”

Something transformed in her roommate’s expression. Black rage started to infuse his open, honest features.

The sight of it was horribly alien and discomfiting.

Breathing hard, Hermione found herself twitching instinctively away, a reaction which wasn’t lost on Remus. Spreading his hands in open supplication, her companion’s lips pulled back into a regretful grimace.

Flicking his gaze towards her emptied wardrobe, Remus’s head cocked slightly to the right. Releasing her hands, he darted over to the enclosed space and closed his fingers over some small object she had missed during the course of her frantic search.

There was a jangling, metallic sound as Remus tossed Hermione her old house keys. Instinctively, she reached up and snatched those blasted things from mid-air. Staring upwards at her prize, her fingers curled tightly around the jagged teeth of her keys as if they were her only remaining lifeline.

Relief crashed through her like a tidal wave. Hermione leaned forwards, wrapping her arms around herself as she tried to regain her footing in a world she wasn’t so sure she recognized.

“I’m so stupid,” she said as Remus settled beside her. “When did I get so stupid?”

“Stop that,” he admonished. Gingerly, he placed a firm hand on the small of her back. Allowing her eyes to fall shut, Hermione took from Remus, the comfort he was so freely offering. “You’re the smartest person I know,”

“You should get out more,” she laughed shakily.

“I’m serious. I don’t like hearing you put yourself down. We all forget silly little things like keys,” he insisted as he ran his thumb in small, concentric circles over her spine. “Are you still planning on going over tomorrow?”

“Yes…yes I suppose I am,” she laughed giddily as she kept her gaze fixed on the ground. To her ears, she sounded just a tad deranged. “I’ll go during the day when Cormac’s at work, so I won’t have to see him. I was going to take my time to pack, between now and Friday…but now I think I’m just going to take what’s important and leave everything else,”

Remus hesitated; he twitched uncomfortably and shifted restlessly.

“You seem like a man with something to say,” Hermione stated wryly.

“If you don’t tell me what Cormac did, I’m going to spend the next forever imagining worse and worse possibilities of what actually happened between the both of you,” Remus blurted.

“Jesus…” she shook her head.

“I know I shouldn’t push, but…”

“No, it’s fine,” Hermione wished her voice would stop its ridiculous shaking. “I mean, it’s not fine. But something tells me you’ve already guessed at the truth…I assume, anyway,”

It was a long while before Remus spoke again. When he did, the rasp of his voice was almost unrecognizable, as he asked, “How badly did he hurt you?”

“The first time,” she looked up at last, and observed the way the man was tamping his fury for her sake. “Was in February. I’m not sure if you recall, but I spent two weeks declining dinner invitations and drinks. Not because of _massive injuries_ or anything that tawdry. I just…I couldn’t look anyone in the eye for a while. I couldn’t look _myself_ in the eye, truth be told,”

“In February, I was knee-deep in deadlines. I barely even saw _Sirius_ ,” he muttered.

“Instead of leaving him then, I stayed. Like a massive idiot, I stayed. I believed him when he told me he wouldn’t do it again, and…and I wanted to give him a chance,” she said evenly.

“You’re not an idiot,” Remus said adamantly.

“About a month ago, he shoved me into a wall. Christ, I think we were fighting over whose turn it was to do the dishes or something equally trivial…whatever it was, by the end of the night, I was left with some fairly awful bruises all along my back…” Hermione grimaced. “That was when I finally understood what a fool I had been, to have believed in anything Cormac had to say,”

“I’m going to kill him.” Remus stated coldly. “Give me your car keys. I’m driving over there right now, and I’m going to beat his face in. I swear, I’m going to break his…”

“No, you stop that. You stop it right now,” Hermione commanded, as severely as she could manage. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid. I won’t have you arrested on my account, for battery or something equally ridiculous,”

“But…”

“No buts Remus, I’m fucking serious. Cormac’s not worth it,”

“Did you…that is to say, did you consider calling the…uh…the police?” he asked after a moment.

Hermione twisted her neck this way and that as she organized her thoughts.

“Here’s the thing. I read the news. And my company, we work with tons of women’s shelters as you well know,” she started.

“I am uncomfortably aware of how these things work. Going to the authorities _now_ will do exactly nothing. I should have called the police when it happened, but I didn’t. Back then, a part of me had still wanted to _protect_ him…my sentiment guided my every move, and that had been foolish, yes, but there you have it. _Now_ however…now that I’ve come to my senses, it’s all much too late. My bruises are gone and I’ve not got a shred of proof to show what it was exactly, that Cormac had done. Should I go to the police now, chances are, I would be called a liar, or _worse_ …and frankly, I lack the energy to drag this out for any longer than I absolutely have to,”

“He’s a fucking shithead,” Remus pronounced after a moment. “I can’t believe that bastard is going to get away with what he’s done,”

“There are no such things as fairy tales Remus,” Hermione intoned drearily.

In response, Remus scooped her into a tight embrace. Gratefully, she burrowed her face into his rumpled black shirt.

“I would like it very much, if you would allow me to accompany you tomorrow when you go back to that…that _place_ ,”

“I don’t need…” she started.

“Please,” Remus tilted her chin to meet his gaze. “If not for you, then at least for me. I honestly don’t know that I can abide the thought of you returning to that house all on your own. If you _insist_ against it, I promise I won’t push any further…although I won’t like it. I won’t like it one little bit,”

The prospect of having Remus beside her was more comforting than Hermione cared to admit.

“Fine. You _may_ come with me,” she murmured, wondering distantly if this made her a weaker person. “I suppose I should break my silence with the boys eventually…”

“You don’t have to tell them a damned thing if you don’t want to,” Remus voice took on a fiercely protective note.

Looking up into his clear, grey eyes, Hermione found her heart swelling with affection.

Smiling faintly, Remus’s hand dropped to her closed fist. Very gently, he began to pry at her enclosed fingers with great care. Loosening her death grip, he grunted in displeasure at the sight of several angry red marks which had been imprinted into the soft flesh of her palms.

Evidently, the metal teeth of her keys had bitten viciously into her skin.

“My silence is probably not helping their silly imaginations,” she pointed out as Remus set the small offending objects on her pillow.

“You do realize, Ron and Harry will likely lose their heads once they find out,” Remus warned. “And I don’t know that I would even try to stop them, should they choose violence,”

“They will not,” Hermione pronounced curtly. “I won’t allow it,”

Shaking his head, Remus’s cupped his large hands against the curve of her cheeks. Leaning down, he pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“My brave, _brave_ girl,” he murmured against her skin. With his thumbs, he stroked her tears away. “We should get something to eat. You look like hell,”

“What good thing did I do in another life, to deserve a friend as wonderful as you?” she questioned in wonder. “Or as _mean_?”

“Silly woman,” he chuckled. “I ask myself that question all the time, when it comes to you,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side Note: 
> 
> It is important to remember that a majority of domestic abuse cases go unreported for various reasons. The women who suffer in silence aren't always unthinking creatures...things are never quite that easy, or uncomplicated. The women who don't suffer in silence, sometimes end up being cast in a bad light. 
> 
> However, domestic abuse should **never** be tolerated.
> 
> Anyway, just a note, not a high horse or anything.


	10. Planting Season: Chapter 2

**Hermione**

The following morning, for reasons Hermione didn’t quite understand, Remus insisted on renting a Zipcar.

“I still have my car,” she pointed out in annoyance as she tugged on a grey cardigan. “I don’t give it up until Saturday,”

The Toyota she had doted on for years was about to be handed over to an extremely poor student for a measly two-thousand pounds. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was something.

Standing in the foyer, Remus waved her concerns aside. Quickly, he typed out a flimsy excuse to his boss, explaining why he wasn’t going into work that day. Apparently, the cellar downstairs was experiencing a terrible flood…

…which was interesting, because the house they were standing in, most certainly did _not_ have a cellar.

“Remus, are you even listening?” Hermione demanded grumpily. “Those car rental things are expensive,”

“I still have my life, and I would like to keep it that way,” Remus stifled a sleepy yawn. “That car of yours frightens me,”

“That’s not very nice,” Hermione scowled. She had bought her not-so-gently-used Toyota after graduating from uni as a gift to herself; there were certain emotional attachments she had formed with the clunky old thing. “Bree is perfectly functional,”

“The fact that you named your car after a fictional talking horse,” her roommate’s lips twitched as he put away his beat up iPhone 6. “A _rebellious_ horse at that, _doesn’t_ comfort me as much as you might think it does,”

“A rebellious horse who saved everyone,” Hermione crossed her arms. “After being victimised by bipeds, no less,”

“Hermione, it’s much too early for us to be discussing christian literature masquerading as high fantasy,” he gestured impatiently at his front door. “Shall we?”

Snorting in irritation, she stomped outside. Casting Bree one last backwards glance, she felt almost as if she were betraying an old friend. Granted, the car had started making some very strange noises in recent months…

Turning to follow Remus, Hermione supposed her irritation didn’t really have anything to do with the desertion of her rusty, slightly hazardous car.

It was the thought of returning to her marital home, which was causing her no small amount of anxiety.

In recent days, as Hermione tried to understand how her life had arrived to its current state, she found herself arriving at a few uncomfortable conclusions.

Thinking on her early twenties, the woman began to understand how her extreme efforts to exert complete control over every last aspect of her life, might actually have played a large part in how things had eventually…well…spun _out_ of control.

At twenty-one Hermione, had looked around her, and found herself quite disinterested in what most of her peers were doing with their lives. Most of them were either drifting in and out of relationships trying to find ‘true love’, or simply attempting to get laid as often as they possibly could.

At best, the whole enterprise of dating and romance appeared to be time-consuming. At worst, it seemed a total waste of time. To Hermione’s mind, all that energy could have been better expended towards building a solid career…

Except - Hermione wanted success, _and_ she wanted to be with someone whom she could stand for more than ten minutes at a time. Cooking for one was troublesome, to say the least, but the concept of regular sex was also very appealing.

All of those ideas led her to ask that one final, cliched question that decided the next phase of her life…

_Why couldn’t she simply have it all?_

The next time Cormac texted, Hermione replied with one word.

<Yes> 

Cormac, who had made it quite clear that he was crazy about her, and who had assured her over and over that she was the woman he had always known he was going to marry.

Eighteen months into their relationship, Hermione found no logical reason to say ‘no’ to the man’s passionate proposal. After all, the man not only adored her, but he had a stable future ahead of him…in his father’s firm, true, but still a _future_.

Accepting his ring, the woman had felt triumphantly as if she were checking off a box on an invisible to-do list. With marriage accounted for, there had been nothing left to do after, but to complete the other items on her ever-lengthening list.

Regardless, all of that had transpired three whole years ago. These days, Hermione Granger didn’t have a list, a life-plan, or a lover to come home to, let alone _checkboxes_ to keep her walking a straight line.

Indeed, these days, she barely had parents to call her own, thanks to her own misplaced obstinacy.

But…she supposed she had a career…so at least _something_ had worked out as a result of her youthful need for utter control.

“You know, I’ve always meant to ask…” Remus spoke into the silence which had fallen between them. The street they were walking down was filled with early morning pedestrians on their way to work. “When we met, you told me you moved back here from Singapore. If I remember correctly, you also mentioned that you’ve lived in several countries in Asia…yet in the decade or so that I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you speak any language that isn’t English,”

“Why would I speak to _you_ in anything other than English?” she inquired teasingly. “It’s not as if you speak Korean, or Cantonese…”

“Don’t be annoying, you know exactly what I mean. Do you? Speak another language, that is?” Remus seemed sincerely curious.

Hermione considered lying; she opened her mouth with every intention of mangling some Indonesian proverb she had been taught as a child.

“No,” she admitted resignedly. “I do not speak another language. I’ve always wanted to go back to school to take up Japanese…”

Her companion seemed properly confused at her response. “That’s quite surprising to be honest. You spent a good fifteen years of you life in Asia didn’t you?”

“The thing about my parents…” Hermione sighed. “Like all good British expats in the nineties, they left the UK with the best of intentions. They honestly meant to explore new cultures, discover other ways of living…but…once they got to Asia, the only people they really socialized with were other Brits. I mean, yes, sometimes, we spent time with Australian and American expats too, but…”

“Are you…” Remus choked back a laugh as they rounded a corner. “Are you seriously telling me that you spent over a decade away from England, so you could live among other _Brits_?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Hermione protested. “As I said, there were Australians…and Americans…the occasional Canadian even,”

Remus chortled good-naturedly.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, honestly,” Hermione couldn’t help but smile. “My family did _try_ to partake in the local customs and cultures. I experienced lots of things I would never have gotten to experience had we remained here. For instance…the first time I ever tasted oysters, they had been grilled over a great big fire in a Taiwanese night market…I can’t find the same thing here, not even in Chinatown. Believe me, I’ve tried,”

“I don’t like oysters,” her roommate made a face. “Slimy little buggers,”

The two of them stopped in front of a four seater sedan parked by the side of the road. Remus did something on his phone and the locks popped open after a few seconds.

“Of course _you_ would, you boring, boring man,” she smirked as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Says the woman who spent almost two decades in _Asia_ , in the exciting company of the _English_ ,” he circled over to the driver’s side. “Tell me, did you learn any good recipes for mushy peas while you were living in Shanghai?”

“As a matter of fact,” Hermione flushed in embarrassment as she fastened her seatbelt. “I might’ve. My classmate Nancy, her mother…”

Remus burst into outright laughter as he started the car. Settling back, Hermione started giggling herself as she considered how ridiculous she sounded. Collecting her thoughts, she cast her mind back towards her unusual childhood.

“There was that time I almost fell off a mountainside during a hike through the countryside of Southern China…”

***

They stopped to pick up easy-assemble boxes. Strolling through aisles of packing supplies, she narrated a visit to an art shop in Suzhou.

“It was ridiculous,” she told her companion. “All these hand-painted works of art for next to nothing, in the most run-down place you can imagine,”

“Hermione Jean Granger, did you exploit these poor, foreign businesspeople?” Remus joked as she paid for her purchases.

“The _art dealer_ was quite insulted when Dad tried to pay him more money, I’ll have you know,” Hermione sniffed as she clumsily attempted to gather her entire stack of un-assembled boxes all on her own. “Also, I wasn’t sure it wasn’t the naive tourists who were being exploited,”

Before her purchases could slide to the ground, unasked, Remus reached out and took a good portion of her burdens from her.

By the time they pulled into the neighbourhood where she had spent the last three years of her life existing, Hermione was almost finished with the tale of how she had dashed through a department store in Osaka, demanding to know if anyone present spoke English.

“I was such an entitled little brat,” she confessed, staring out the window at the passing houses.

“Oh please,” Remus scoffed as he pulled up to the curb. “Remind me to tell you about the time Sirius kept screaming ‘do you have any idea who I am?’ as he was being tossed out of a pub. You know, on account of the fact that he was completely shit-faced. You’ll feel _much_ better about yourself after that story,”

“Remus, that episode occurred last year, on his birthday,” Hermione said dryly. “I remember that story, because I was the one who got him home. _You_ weren’t much better yourself,”

“Now hang on…

“You threw up twice in one night, and kept on insisting that everyone had to start referring to you as ‘Moony’. You told us it was going to be your character’s name, for that one-man play you were intending to write…something about a lonely werewolf living out in rural Yorkshire. God but that was such a bizarre storyline. I would _not_ have paid to see it Remus, I want you to know that,”

“Quite right too,” her roommate looked suitably shamed. “There was rather a lot of tequila that night…bloody Sirius and his bloody _Patrón_ …”

They stopped talking.

“Well, I suppose I should get out of the car,” she said needlessly, staring up at the garish house she had been sharing with Cormac until very recently. The two storey building looked exactly the same as every house on the street upon which they were currently parked.

Cormac’s _first_ choice had been a mansion outside the city, but it would have been bought on his father’s coin. Naturally, Hermione had put her foot down…equally naturally, it became a point of contention for the entire duration of her marriage.

“Hermione?” Remus said. “We don’t have to do this. You can always buy new clothes and books…”

“There are things in there from my childhood,” Hermione replied. “Things that are quite precious to me. Besides, Pepper’s still in there and I _have_ to get her,”

“Oh hell,” Remus grumbled. “I forgot about the blasted cat,”

“I just paid you rent, on the verbal agreement that I got to bring my cat with me,” she turned to him with a grin that didn’t feel entirely insincere.

“Right,” he answered morosely. Slinging his left arm around her shoulders, Remus pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her hair. Gratefully, Hermione buried her nose into the crook of his neck.

“Whenever you’re ready. I’m right behind you,”

“That’s going to be problematic, because I’ll never actually _be_ ready,” Hermione answered with a muffled sigh. “Nothing for it but to soldier onwards I guess,”

Mustering what courage she still owned, Hermione tugged at the door handle of the passenger side door, and stepped out.

***

The place seemed empty. Certainly, it was as silent as an abandoned tomb.

“Pepper,” she called as she shut the door behind them. “Pepper, Mummy’s home,”

Remus’s lips twitched in amusement. Ignoring her roommate, Hermione walked through the house and repeated, “Pepper? Kitty?”

Stepping into the kitchen, Hermione almost tossed her keys onto the granite countertop the same way she did every time she returned from work. Reminding herself forcefully that she was no longer truly the mistress of the house, she tucked the keys into her back pocket instead.

There were no excited meows, no pitter-patter of tiny padded feet running towards her. Frowning, Hermione wondered if perhaps Pepper had gotten herself stuck somewhere in the bowels of the house.

Stepping around the kitchen counter, the woman noted with a quake of unease, the massive mountain of kibble sitting un-eaten in the cat’s bowl.

“Shall we begin packing? Best we get that part done as quickly as possible, before we start the hunt for your demon cat,” Remus peered at his surroundings. “Hermione, don’t take this the wrong way, but your tastes lived and died in the nineties didn’t it?”

“I didn’t decorate this place,” she scowled. “Cormac’s mother insisted on taking on that task. Had I known she was colour-blind, I might have been a little more vocal about my thoughts on the matter. Alas, I did _not_ know, which is how we ended up with a gold-plated coffee table,”

“Honestly colour-blindness does not account for salmon-coloured drapes,” Remus sounded sincerely offended as he followed her up the stairs. “I think that qualifies as _actual_ blindness,”

Grinding her jaw, Hermione held her tongue. Entering the room deigned as the ‘study’ - though in reality, it held no desk, nor many books - the two roommates proceeded to assemble her recently purchased boxes.

The entire time, Hermione cast an eye towards every shadow, wondering if eventually, Pepper would emerge, demanding affection and attention.

Turning to her bookcase, Hermione’s fingers closed over a hardcover edition of _“Helmut Newton: SUMO”_.

“Oh…” she breathed.

Smiling fondly at the heavy book in her hands, very carefully, she leafed through its pristine pages, and marvelled once again at its thick stock, its fine binding, its glorious print quality…

The volume she held was one of the most treasured tomes in her small library, not only because she happened to admire the photographer in question, but also because…

Glancing upwards, she found Remus gazing at the book with a very odd light in his grey eyes. Very quietly, he observed, “You still have it,”

“Of course I do,” Hermione’s lips lifted into a soft, pleased smile. Carefully, she placed the book into a waiting box. “I still remember when you gave it to me. It was the best gift I received that Christmas. Actually, I think it’s the best gift anyone has ever given me,”

Remus said nothing. Turning away from her, he continued stacking books into a waiting box.

Belatedly, Hermione wondered if perhaps she ought to have simply kept her thoughts to herself. Perhaps the gift meant more to her, than ever it did to him. Returning her focus towards her own tasks, she did her best to pretend his silence didn’t sting.

“The gift made you very happy, as I seem to recall,” Remus said abruptly. “I remember the savagery you employed as you ripped apart the wrapping paper,”

Inside her chest, Hermione’s heart fluttered like a mad thing.

“Savagery?” she asked, not looking at him.

“Savagery,” she could hear the grin in his voice now. “I’ll have you know, I spent _hours_ trying to get that wrapping paper to sit just right. Corners, as it turns out, are a real pain in the arse. I must have watched a hundred YouTube vid…”

The sound of a slamming door interrupted their discussion. Someone barrelled up the stairs and hurried towards the study. Spinning on her heel, Hermione took an instinctive step backwards.

“Found your keys did you?” Cormac demanded from the doorway. Eyes burning with fury flicked threateningly towards Remus, before they settled once more on her person.

“Yes,” she said shortly. Pettily, she added, “Obviously,”

“I installed a new sensor by the door, which clearly _you_ failed to notice,” Cormac smiled viciously. He was slurring ever so slightly. “I knew it the moment you came home,”

“Are you _drunk_?” Hermione exclaimed, aghast. “Cormac, it’s eleven in the morning…”

“Are you fucking this arsehole?” he countered, striding up towards her. “I always knew the two of you were far too close. I swear ‘Mione, if…”

Before she could move aside, Remus was standing between her and the raging force that was her ex-husband. “Stay _away_ from her,”

“Piss off Lupin. If you’ve fucked her,” Cormac sneered. “I swear I will _end_ you,”

“Fucking _try_ ,” Remus sounded and _looked_ vaguely unhinged as he straightened to his full height.

All of a sudden, Hermione had no doubt exactly who would end up in hospital, should a brawl actually break out.

It wouldn’t be Remus.

“Enough,” the woman declared, ducking around her roommate’s protective stance. There was no way in hell she was going to let Remus get himself charged with attempted murder for her sake. “We’re almost finished up in this room. I’m going to go into our… _the_ bedroom to grab a few things, and then we’ll be on our way,”

“Are you seriously leaving me for this…this _loser_?” Cormac laughed unpleasantly. “You’re delusional if you think I’ll ever agree to a divorce!”

Something came over Hermione just then; something loud, demanding and hot coursed through her veins. Years of tension, and anger, and frustration were all finally erupting within her, and in that moment, she found her hesitation and trepidation burning away with a speed she hadn’t imagined possible.

Drawing her right arm back, she swung. With a resounding crack, her fist connected against Cormac’s cheek.

Unprepared as he was, her ex-husband sprawled backwards onto the ground.

“It’s the twenty-first century Cormac, you can try to deny me a divorce all you want, but you won’t win,” she stated, ignoring the fact that the skin at her knuckles had split into bloody, stinging wounds.

“Do you really think so?” Cormac wheezed angrily as he nursed his rapidly swelling face. From where she stood, it appeared as if she might have successfully broken his face.

_Good._

Behind her, Hermione felt rather than saw Remus’s surprise at her violent outburst.

Ignoring her friend for the moment, she stood over Cormac and informed him, “Oh but I _do_ think so. Try not signing the papers. I’ll be sure to let the world know you’re a wife beater. How do you think that will look?”

“No one will believe you,” he scrambled to his feet, looking as if he were raring to go for another round.

“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I can’t see your father enjoying the prospect of the McLaggen name being dragged through the mud. Do you? Because I _will_ stretch it out. I _will_ protest and I _will_ fight,”

He sputtered. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re not getting a cent out of me, you gold digging _whore_ ,”

“Oh Cormac, I never wanted your money. I was foolish enough to believe you were a safe choice however…the right man to build a life with,” she hated the bitterness in her voice. “Stay the _fuck_ out of my way,”

“I should call the police, and report that I’ve been assaulted by my bitch of a wife,” Cormac snarled.

“And tell them what? That your _tiny_ wife beat you up? They’ll ask me why I did such a thing, and believe me - I’ll them _everything_. I’ll tell them about February - about the time _you_ punched me in the face, simply because I stayed late at work,” Hermione promised vehemently.

Cormac blanched.

“He did _what_?” Remus bellowed. Grey eyes flashed in the other man’s direction. “You little shit…”

“Remus,” Hermione interrupted, squeezing her eyes shut. “Do you mind just bringing those boxes to the car?”

“But…”

“Go. Please,” she sighed.

“Fine,” her roommate sounded extremely unhappy. To Cormac, he hissed, “McLaggen, if I ever see your face again, I swear…”

“ _Remus!_ ” Hermione admonished sharply.

Making a rude noise, her roommate began stacking her boxes into a pile.

“By the way,” Hermione’s frown deepened. “Where’s the cat?”

“She took a leaf out of your book and ran off. I haven’t seen that mangy thing in days. That little cunt is probably dead,”

Sucking in a breath, the woman clenched both her fists once more; blood dripped onto the white carpeted floor of the study. Instinctively, Cormac raised his arms to ward off more blows…which left him wholly unprepared, for the moment when Hermione slammed her knee straight into his crotch.

Yowling in shock and pain, he collapsed into an agonized heap. Stepping over her ex-husband’s prone form, Hermione exited the room.

***

The next time Hermione spoke, they were a few streets away from her old home.

“I’m very, very sorry you had to see that,” she said gloomily. “If you want me to find another place to live…”

“Not this again,” Remus groaned as he navigated a turn. “You haven’t got anything to be sorry for,”

“Really? Because it felt like I just assaulted someone in front of my landlord,” she stated flatly.

“Hermione, don’t take this the wrong way,” Remus sounded aggrieved. “Don’t you _ever_ call me your ‘landlord’ again. Also, watching you beat the hell out of McLaggen was possibly the most satisfying moment in my entire life,”

Peering over at her companion, Hermione took in Remus’s proud grin.

“You approve?”

“Oh god _yes_ ,” he nodded vigorously. “Is it alright if I tell the lads what you did?”

“Ah. Right. How do you feel about having them over tomorrow night for a few drinks?” Hermione asked. “That way, if anyone decides to start yelling, at least we won’t be in public. I swear, I will replace all broken furniture,”

“It’s _your_ home too,” her roommate said gently. Reaching out, he squeezed briefly at her limp hand - the one that wasn’t still bleeding. “You can have over any guest you like, at any time of day,”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she managed to joke.

Turning to look out the window, she thought guiltily of poor Pepper.

With any luck, her little grey cat was thriving out in the concrete wilderness of the city…although Hermione had a distinct suspicion that the opposite was true. Pepper had always been an indoor cat, with a sweet disposition rather than a killer instinct.

The poor thing must have been so frightened before she…

Staring up at the unusually blue sky, Hermione reminded herself of the way Cormac had looked, twisted up into a ball of pain on the ground.

She smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't champion violence...unless it's provoked by violence...


	11. Planting Season: Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Everyone's comments has been extremely supportive and lovely. Thank you to anyone sticking with this story. It definitely gets more rom-com-y from here. 
> 
> Also, might I just say, the empathetic reviews towards the trials and tribulations of our hero Hermione has renewed my faith in humanity in general. Thank you for being patient, and for sticking around to the point when she finally beats her abuser.

**Hermione**

By the time Harry and Ron were sitting in front of her the following night, alongside an obscenely curious Sirius Black, Hermione found to her surprise, that she felt very much like her old self. At the back of her mind, she wondered if punching Cormac in the face might have helped her new-old disposition along. Kneeing him in the balls likely hadn’t hurt. Or at least, it hadn’t hurt _her_ anyway.

Rubbing at her bandaged hand - because Remus _would_ insist on overreacting - Hermione explained to her friends the reasons she had left her marriage behind. Finishing her story, the woman sat back and waited patiently for the inevitable explosion she knew was coming.

Allowing her shoulders to relax, she took a slow sip of Writer’s Tears. Closing her eyes, she savoured the sweet taste of her favourite whiskey as it slipped past her throat.

“Cormac did _what_?” Harry roared at last, as her words finally sunk in.

“Harry, tell Ginny you’re going to be home late,” Ron bounded to his feet.

“Boys, calm yourselves,” Remus cautioned lightly.

Far too lightly. To Hermione’s annoyance, her roommate didn’t actually seem all that sincere in his efforts to hold them back. Indeed, he seemed to be signalling to her boys, the fastest route to the front door. Casting the idiot a dirty glare, she was rewarded with an unapologetic shrug and a mean smirk.

“You’re _not_ going over, and you’re _not_ going to hurt him,” Hermione commanded curtly. “I won’t have any of you arrested for battery. Or attempted murder,”

Sirius peered at her as if she had grown a second head. “You can’t be serious. Someone has got to teach that fuckhead a lesson,”

The nerve of these men, Hermione thought, to assume that nobody had schooled her ex-husband for his ill-mannered behaviour.

“The levels of male testosterone in this kitchen has evidently breached new heights,” Pointing at three vacated seats, she ordered, “Sit. Everyone. _Now._ ”

“But…” Ron protested. “Dammit ‘Mione. You can’t tell us something like this and expect us to do nothing,”

“Yes, I can and I do,” the woman stated unapologetically.

“In all fairness,” Remus said with a sigh as he swirled his own whiskey. “Hermione smashed McLaggen’s bollocks hard enough, I think they’ve retreated back into his body,”

“Now now,” she couldn’t keep herself from grinning at the memory of Cormac moaning in pain. Sadistic, sure, but it wasn’t as if that tosser didn’t have it coming. “I’m sure his balls are just a bit ruptured. No permanent damage was done…probably…”

“Let me assure everyone present, that Hermione beating the living shite out of McLaggen was a fucking _glorious_ sight to behold,” he smiled wickedly back at her.

“Hermione are you at least going to go to the police about this?” Sirius questioned, looking perturbed as he kept his dark gaze trained on her.

“I don’t want to drag this out,” she shook her head. “I don’t want to be called a liar if I can help it. My mistake was that I hung around after the first time he struck me - that sort of thing…that sort of thing plays very badly,”

All three visitors all stared at her uncomprehendingly.

“I work with these shelters…actually, you know what? I don’t believe I’m going to explain myself and my choices,” Hermione’s spine grew as rigid as her tone. “I don’t have to,”

Maybe it was the morally reprehensible thing to do, not to go to the authorities…but at the same time, she would rather move on with her life, than have to deal any further, with the mess that had been her life with Cormac McLaggen. As it stood, the divorce proceedings still needed to attending to…

In one smooth motion, Remus reached out and seized at her hand from across the small dining table. Squeezing it tightly, he turned back to the rest of the room.

“That’s enough,” he told their guests. That familiar, protective undercurrent in his voice served to warm Hermione’s heart…though it also chafed ever so slightly at her sensibilities. It wasn’t as if she were some shrinking violet who couldn’t handle herself.

Ask Cormac.

A strange look passed over Harry’s features as his green eyes darted between herself and her roommate. Not very subtly, his gaze settled on their joined hands. Not quite ready to relinquish Remus’s comforting touch, Hermione cast her best friend a defiant glare.

The first person to break the still tableau was Ron, who came to stand before her. Dropping to a crouch, he pulled her into a tight hug. Harry followed suit, and soon, the three of them were clutching at each other as if they were still only just children.

“At least let us go throw rotten eggs at his front door,” Harry murmured.

“We swear, it won’t go beyond that,” Ron added as he ruffled her curls.

Choking back a laugh, Hermione knew that she ought to at least give her best friends _something_.

“Fine. Three dozen and no more,”

Overhead, she missed the moment when Sirius and Remus slipped silently from the kitchen.

***

There was still close to two months of warm weather left, and one full vacation day ahead of her. Blinking up at the ceiling of her bedroom, Hermione leisurely considered what she wanted to do with her first Friday off in what felt like an eon.

A good portion of her belongings were either hung up in wardrobes around the house, or else stored in her tiny bureau. The earrings her parents gave her when she turned fifteen - the ones from Bali - were sitting in a small porcelain dish beside her bed. Granted, there were still boxes of books stacked up in a corner…but that would be dealt with on the weekend, when her new bookshelf was due to be delivered.

Rising to her feet with a luxurious stretch, Hermione padded barefoot to her window which overlooked the back garden.

As Remus promised, the multiple flowerbeds immediately below were all essentially tiny wastelands of spiky weeds and fluffy wildflowers. Each square of soil was a mess of nature…and potential.

Glancing upwards, the woman noted that though the sun was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds, overall, it didn’t seem as if rain was in the cards…

Smiling softly, Hermione plotted.

***

Her first order of business was coffee and toast. Lounging around in front of the television, idly flipping through program after program, she settled eventually on a repeat episode of _The Great British Menu_.

Unimpressed, Hermione eventually set off to wend her way through the avenues of the city.

Two in the afternoon found the woman wrist deep in rich soil. The flowery gardening gloves she had only just purchased were already irreparably stained by dirt, but that was more than fine. With her new secateurs* in hand, Hermione exuberantly cut down every last offensive Dandelion in sight, before she yanked them up by the root.

An hour of weeding later, the woman surveyed her handiwork with considerable satisfaction. The plots before her were finally bare, and ready for planting. Sighing happily, Hermione commenced the second phase of her mini project.

As the hours passed, the garden began slowly to fill with the scent of mint, rosemary and lavender. Tomato plants were carefully transplanted into the sunniest corners of the small space, alongside the occasional stalk of sage. Vines were set to curl beside long-abandoned trellises - the way she had planted them, it would only be a matter of time before the garden became enclosed in a wall of variegated green.

Lastly, and very lovingly, Hermione added pink and white peonies to the mix.

Humming to herself as she transplanted the flowers, the woman wondered if Nymphadora Tonks would approve of what was being done in what was arguably still _her_ garden…

“Something’s different,” a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

Shaking her head in wry amusement, Hermione wiped at her sweaty face with the back of her gloved hand. In the process, she streaked dirt all along her cheekbones. Turning to her roommate with a wide smile, she rose from where she was crouching.

Remus was leaning against the white doorframe leading from the kitchen into the back garden. The expression he wore as he gazed at her was strangely indecipherable.

Slowly, Hermione’s grin faded.

“Is this alright? You don’t mind do you?” she asked, wishing her voice didn’t tremble just that little bit. “I’m sorry if perhaps I was being a little presumptuous, I just thought…”

“It’s beautiful,” he interrupted as the corners of his mouth twitched up into an odd half smile. “This is the most beautiful the garden has ever been,”

Something in his grey eyes caused her heartbeat to stutter.

After a moment, Hermione gestured at the remaining plants still awaiting her attention. “It’s not finished. And it’ll be two weeks or so before everything settles properly. Assuming nothing dies, we should have tomatoes by September, and all the herbs we could possibly want,”

Silently, Remus stepped out into the open and studied his surroundings. There was something almost wistful in his demeanour as the man took in all the changes she had wrought in the space of one afternoon.

“I have a date tonight,” he said abruptly.

Pivoting on her heel, Hermione crouched down to resume her planting. Brightly, she offered, “That sounds like fun,”

Shuffling about, Remus hesitated for a moment before he began helping her. Shoulder to shoulder, they worked in companionable silence, getting the last of her Peonies stuck into the ground.

“You know how some people have green thumbs?” he asked as they patted down dark soil. “I have whatever’s the opposite. They don’t have a colour for that, I don’t think,”

“It’s not rocket science Remus,” Hermione kept her voice even. “Just water them and feed them,”

“Did I ever tell you about my cactus?” he inquired. “Years ago, an ex-girlfriend bought me a cactus. Apparently, it reflected my personality, or so she said,”

“That was very astute of her,” Hermione said gravely.

“Miss Granger, hasn’t anyone told you it’s not polite to point out the obvious,” he chided. “Back to the cactus - I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be watered or not. This was before the internet, you see? Or smart phones, if you can imagine such a thing,”

“The horror,” Hermione deadpanned.

“Yes, a world without Instagram or Wikipedia. I have no idea how I survived such an era,” Remus made a face. “Anyway, at first I left the pot out in the sun, because that’s where cacti live, or so I’ve been led to believe. I didn’t give the thing water either, since deserts are dry places. After a few days, I started feeling like some sort of sadistic torturer, so I took the plant back into the shade and gave it a cup of water every day. Alas, by the end of the month, much like my ill-fated relationship, the cactus was very, very dead.”

“That sort of thing could happen to anyone,” Hermione said kindly, tried not to laugh. Retrieving a trowel laying on the ground, she asked, “Where are you taking this lucky girl? How did the two of you meet?”

“Tinder. Where else?” Remus poked dispiritedly at a tomato plant. “I thought we’d go for a quick drink and a bite…nothing fancy. This is my first date in…what is it, two years and change?”

Hermione said nothing as she worked out the math in her head. Summoning her courage, she glanced over at her roommate and hazarded her guess.

“Not since…”

“No, not since,” Remus ran his graceful fingers over a mint leaf.

A rush of sympathy flooded Hermione. It swept away all her ill-advised disappointment, which had been produced as a result of learning Remus’s plans for the evening. Quickly, she assured, “It’ll be fun, you’ll see. I just hope this woman is good enough for you,”

“I don’t know about that. I just hope I don’t ruin her life,” Remus blurted out as his fingers ripped viciously at the serrated leaf he had only just been fussing at. “The way I ruined Tonks’s,”

“Remus,” Hermione frowned. She didn’t care about her slightly savaged mint plants. Those things grew like _actual_ weeds anyway. “That’s not true…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he stood up and brushed his hands of dirt.

“Wait,” she scrambled to her feet as he turned to leave. “Remus, you’re a good man. The _best_ of men if you want my opinion. What happened with Tonks wasn’t…”

“I _said_ don’t worry about it.”

Turning on his heel, Remus left Hermione standing in the middle of the garden she had planted, staring forlornly at his disappearing back.

***

For a few weeks now, Hermione had envisioned that at some point in the murky future, when she was finally _ready_ , she would probably find her next partner at one of Ginny’s dinner parties. That, or a work function at the office.

After all, didn’t most people meet their future spouses through friends or at work?

Now however, thinking seriously on the subject of dating, the woman began to see the flaws in her earlier assumptions.

On one hand, Harry and Ginny most certainly did _not_ host dinner parties these days. They were too busy cleaning baby poop for that sort of frivolity. On the other, her work functions always consisted of the same bloody people, most of whom she wanted nothing to do with when she wasn’t actually at work.

Sure, there was Luna, but unfortunately, Hermione simply did not fancy girls with hair that light. Though she supposed she was partial to a specific _shade_ of blonde…

Following the mental elimination of all impossible avenues where she might have met a new boyfriend, it didn’t take very long for Hermione to understand that she was left with only the internet, and possibly an app called Tinder for help.

Scrolling through several dating sites on her MacBook, the woman began throwing back more wine in an effort to gain more fortitude as she perused the men on offer.

Was it some sort of unspoken rule that almost every man had to post something sexually suggestive in their profiles? Also, were all those shirtless selfies really necessary?

Not - Hermione admitted after her third glass of Pinot Noir - that some of the bare chests were _unpleasant_ to stare at. From a very objective standpoint, she supposed she could see the positives in knowing what it was she was getting herself into, were she initiating a fling or a one-night-stand…

On Netflix, a much younger version of George Clooney flirted boldly with a gorgeous Michelle Pfeiffer as they dashed through Central Park. Glancing up at the screen with appreciative eyes, Hermione began to wonder if perhaps _romance_ wasn’t what she was actually after.

There were merits in the idea of a man who wanted to hold her hand as they strolled through the park. There was something nice even, in the idea of a fellow who wanted to take her out to dinner _before_ he ripped her clothes off behind closed doors. And if he didn’t check any boxes on her silly checklist…was that truly the end of the known universe?

Out in the foyer, the front door opened. Sounds of Friday night traffic flowed in from the street, which jarred Hermione from her slightly tipsy reflections.

“Remus?” she called in surprise. It was only eight-thirty.

“No, it’s Santa Claus,” he answered flatly.

“Where’s my pony then?” she asked as he stepped into view. Stalking dejectedly into the living room, the man flopped down beside her and sprawled out.

“Dead,” he replied.

“I take it your date didn’t go so well,” Hermione prayed she didn’t sound as hopeful as she felt.

“It was fucking horrible,” he complained bluntly. “She told me she liked the Star Wars _prequels_ \- apparently, she found them ‘charming and funny’. What kind of monster would say such a thing?”

“You’re not serious are you?” Hermione shut her laptop and set it aside. “The prequels? With the…the _Jar-Jar Binks_ and everything?”

“The very same,” Remus pinched the bridge of his nose. “I remember now, this is why I hated dating when I was younger. Its bloody terrible is it what is, having to wade through all these horrible specimens of humanity,”

“ _Someone_ has a superiority complex,” Hermione rolled her eyes.

“What are you watching?” Remus stared at the television screen. “Why does this look like a catalogue for the worst fashions that came out of the nineties? Honestly Hermione, what’s with you and your obsession with the nineteen-nineties?”

“First of all,” Hermione sniffed. “I happen to think George Clooney is gorgeous in anything he wears,”

“Wonderful, but that doesn’t answer any of my questions. Also, who just buys goldfish as an excuse to chat up a woman?” he frowned.

“You are ruining a perfectly well-written romantic comedy,” Hermione retorted.

In answer, Remus tilted his head and rested his left cheek against her right shoulder. Lifting her wine glass, Hermione tried to ignore the scent of her roommate’s aftershave. Without asking, her roommate reached out and plucked the wine stem from her fingers. Quickly, he drained the remainder of her beverage.

“Oh very nice,” she protested even as he chortled at her annoyance.

“It’s not just _nice_ , it’s an _excellent_ vintage,” he laughed. “For what is it, twenty quid?”

“Snob,” Hermione intoned eloquently.

Setting the emptied glass on the ground, her companion’s expression grew sombre.

“About earlier. I’m sorry if I…”

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I had no business…” Hermione said hurriedly. .

“Will you _let_ me finish?” Remus huffed with fond impatience. “I behaved like an unforgivably rude arsehole earlier. _After_ you took the time to tidy up the disaster that was the back garden, no less. It’s just…the thing is…Hermione, the truth is…”

Feeling suddenly very sober, the woman straightened her back and gave him her undivided attention.

“Tonks and I didn’t get married because we were madly in love. We got married because I went and got her pregnant. The both of us were actually in the middle of a very casual fling - or at least, it was casual on _my_ end. When she ended up carrying my child…well…” he spoke slowly. “I tried to do the right thing, which as it turned out, was actually the _stupid_ thing,”

This wasn’t a story Hermione was familiar with, and it was taking her by surprise. On the surface, Remus and Tonks had always seemed to be such an adorable, affectionate pair…

“Once Tonks realized I was never going to fall in love with her, she didn’t thank me for that wedding ring. All the same, we tried to make our marriage work as best as we could. When she…when she died because of that damnable miscarriage…frankly, it felt as if I had as good as _murdered_ her,”

“But…” Hermione choked out. “Remus, you didn’t. None of that was your fault…you know that, don’t you?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, her companion said quietly, “Actual logic doesn’t play into these sorts of things,”

Very carefully, Hermione wrapped her arms loosely around her roommate’s shoulders. Resting her chin on his shoulder, she observed the byplay of emotions as they crossed his expressive features.

“I’m not an expert on marriage,” she said after a moment. “That should be obvious by now. But I believe there are worse reasons to get married and to stay married, than for the sake of a child,”

“I suppose you’re right as usual,” Remus sighed. Reaching a hand up, he stroked gently at her curls.

“Speaking of marriage,” Hermione continued. “I meant to tell you…my lawyer called this afternoon. Cormac’s decided to hire his own attorney. It appears my ex-husband has changed his mind, and he no longer means to contest anything…it would seem I’m getting my divorce after all,”

“That’s fantastic! This calls for a celebration!” Remus’s grin became a sincere, blinding thing. “Let’s get everyone out so we can get properly smashed!”

“But our pity party has been such fun,” Hermione said wryly. “Why ruin it with company?”

“I’m going to ignore your sarcasm,” he ruffled at her hair like she was still the little girl he met ten years prior.

“I have a better idea,” Hermione looked towards the kitchen. “There’s a second bottle of wine on the counter. Why don’t we pair it with _The Return of the Jedi_ and call it a night well-spent?”

“Oh thank god,” the man’s shoulders sagged in relief. “I was afraid you were actually going to take me up on my ridiculous suggestion. I’ll go fetch the bottle while you deal with the rental and whatnot,”

Staring after her roommate, Hermione exhaled, and wondered despondently if it were somehow possible for her to find a version of Remus that might actually see her as a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * secateurs - one of my favourite words in the entire English lexicon. I do not know why.


	12. Planting Season: Chapter 4

**Remus**

“I don’t like this,” Sirius repeated. “I don’t like that we’re letting that bastard get away with what he’s done. Remus, look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to break that dickbag’s face,”

They were upstairs in Remus’s bedroom, away from where Hermione was still locked in a group hug with her best friends.

“You have _no_ idea how badly I would like to smash a few of his bones. But this isn’t up to us,” Remus informed him. “ _We_ don’t get a say. McLaggen is Hermione’s problem, and that’s just how it is,”

“Fine. Fine, that’s all very well. But what about the police? Why aren’t we setting the authorities on that bloody _wife-beating_ piece of flaming shit?” Sirius raked his fingers through his dark hair in frustration. 

“I think she doesn’t have it in her right now to work through all that drama,” Remus explained a little stiffly. Pointedly, he added, “Frankly, I don’t see why or how anyone could judge her for this,”

“She’s allowing for the chance that he’ll do this to someone else,” Sirius stated. “For a smart girl, this seems incredibly short-sighted, not to mention _irresponsible_ ,”

“Sirius, you can’t be…you’re not actually…for fuck’s sake man, have you no sodding _empathy_?” Remus crossed his arms. Irritation blossomed in his chest as he stared down the other man. “She’s simply trying to protect herself, and to get away from that arsehole as quickly as she can. I _refuse_ to fault her for that, and I will defend to the death her right to do as she sees fit. Let me make myself abundantly clear - you have _zero_ right to judge her,”

The other man looked suitably chastened as he took in his best friend’s words. “Right. That’s fair I suppose,”

Vindicated, Remus inclined his chin graciously.

“There are other ways to ruin a man,” Sirius said after a moment, looking thoughtful.

“Sirius…”

“Seriously, data breaches are all the rage these days. Tax attorneys with poor security? That firm be shut down inside of a week,” Sirius began pacing with his hands on his hips. “I know some engineers in Malaysia who wouldn’t mind earning a fat cheque on the side…if you get my drift,”

“First of all, I’m going to pretend I have no idea what you’re talking about because what you’re really suggesting is committing several _felonies_ all at once. Second - you would do this for Hermione?” Remus asked curiously. “Why?”

“Before you fly into a jealous rage - _again_ , I might add,” Sirius said. “Bear in mind, she’s one of my Godson’s dearest friends, _and_ she’s the woman my _own_ best friend is madly in love with,”

“I’m not…” Remus started. 

“I watched her grow from an awkward, gawky girl, into a strong, terrifying woman with a massive heart,” he ploughed on as if Remus hadn’t spoken. “And then I saw how Cormac McLaggen almost broke her,”

“I would like to break him myself,” Remus interjected. “But this isn’t a fairy tale where the heroes ride in to save the damsel. For one thing, Hermione isn’t a helpless creature. She will not thank you for this,”

“What the hell am I supposed to do, just sit back? Do I do nothing?” Sirius asked plaintively. 

“Yes, actually, that’s exactly right,” Remus informed his woebegone friend. 

Sirius treated most things in life like it was a joke. Women, money, expensive toys…the only things he treated with great and actual care were the people he loved and valued.

There had been a time when Remus had wondered why Harry’s parents didn’t choose _him_ to be their young son’s adoptive father in the event of their deaths. Had they decided financial security was more important than say, emotional maturity? 

Not, of course, that _he_ had wanted a child to watch over at age twenty when that horrible car accident happened…in fact, grief-stricken though he was, he had found himself shamefully relieved that he had not been entrusted with the care of an infant.

In the years that ensued, Harry grew up never wanting for love and affection, and there stopped being any doubt that James and Lily had known exactly what they were doing they day they notarized their will. Considering those two had been rash teenagers themselves when Lily got pregnant with Harry, their foresight proved ultimately, to be quite impressive.

“Well fine. I won’t do anything illegal,” Sirius growled, visibly chafing at the prospect of not being able to avenge someone he obviously cared for. “But I don’t have to give him any more of my money. _Black Shipping_ is finished with _McLaggen Tax Attorneys_ ,”

“On another topic,” Remus said, deciding he was well shut of the subject of Cormac McLaggen. “Do you think I should get a kitten? Something orange maybe, and fluffy,”

Sirius peered at him like he was truly a pathetic specimen of humanity.

“You _hate_ cats. Just bloody ask her out already. You’ll thank me later,” 

Deciding Sirius was actually extremely useless, Remus turned and left the room in a loud, put-upon huff. 

***  
Weeks after that conversation, on his way home from work, Remus stepped into the supermarket to pick up dinner.

Ambling through the store, the man stared down at his basket, filled with a niggling suspicion that he had forgotten something extremely important. On his way towards the cashier, as he wandered past the junk food section, it finally came to him why he needed to step into the supermarket to begin with. 

Hastily, Remus scanned the wide selection of crisps arranged in neat rows before him, doing his best to find a very specific flavour…

“Are you here to make up for your past transgressions?” a familiar voice asked, just as his fingers closed triumphantly around his prize.

A smile spread across his face as he chucked the foil packet into his shopping basket. 

“And how have I transgressed?” he asked, turning slightly to regard his companion.

“Remus, you know what you did,” Hermione breathed dramatically from a few feet behind him. “How could you? I _trusted_ you,”

Spinning on his heel, he gave her his most dastardly smirk. In a low voice, affecting his best Bond-villain impression, he said silkily, “Ms. Granger, you were a fool to have trusted me,”

Hermione wobbled her lower lip. She widened her eyes endearingly. “They were mine. _My_ sweet chilli crisps! _Mine_!”

Close by, several patrons of the supermarket alternated between confusion and open irritation as they observe the ridiculous display the two of them were putting on. A few feet away, an old lady made an aggravated noise as she creaked her shopping trolley away from them. 

Remus finally cracked. Slumping into a shelf of crisps, he informed his roommate, “I got hungry one night while you were gone and the chips were there. I’m sorry. I can’t promise it won’t happen again,”

“Well at least you’re replacing them,” she chastised half-heartedly as she began to move down the aisle.

“Did you have a good trip north?” Remus fell in step with Hermione.

They hadn’t spoken in three days…not really. Hermione had been travelling for work, and she had spent the better part of the week up in Glasgow. Whereas _he_ had been coping with a new set of deadlines, and some very angry stakeholders. 

They had exchanged a few spare texts of course. She had told him how irritated she had been about a last minute change in project plans, while he had asked for advice on how to cope with an angry vice-president…

All in all, Remus’s week had not been to his liking. Much as he was loath to admit, a large part of his dissatisfaction had to do with the simple fact that he missed his roommate’s presence. 

“It was fine,” she answered, perusing a selection of canned soups. “How did things go with Moody?”

“I did that thing you recommended. I explained to Moody that most of what he wanted was rather out of my hands…” Remus reported. Brightening slightly, he added, “I watered the plants like you wanted,”

“Oh good,” Hermione sounded relieved. “I should have known your garden was in good hands,”

“ _Our_ garden,” he couldn’t help saying. 

By his side, his roommate remained silent. Swallowing back the rest of his words, Remus ignored the ache in his chest. Changing the subject, he said, “I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow night,”

“We finished up sooner than we expected. And the client didn’t fancy paying for an extra night of hotel rooms or meals,” Hermione shrugged as she rubbed at her bare arms. 

“Too much french champagne at dinner?” he inquired archly. Idly, he regretted not bringing his blazer, if only so he could offer her a layer of comfort right now…

“One bottle of _Dom_ at dinner and everyone loses their heads,” she joked flippantly.

“In the case of French royalty in the 1700s, that was actually, _literally_ the case,” Remus observed. 

“No you silly man. That was about _cake_ ,” she quipped, reaching for a bag of frozen peas. 

From where he stood, Remus could plainly see the way the soft skin of her bare arms pimpled as cold air rushed out from the freezer. 

“How has your week been?”

“It was…um…” he collected his scattered thoughts. “It’s been extremely busy. I’m dealing with a number of furious people who are all labouring under the assumption that what my team does is magic, not hard work,”

“You have to admit, code looks a lot like magic to people who don’t understand an ‘if’ statement,” Hermione said as they strolled into the frozen yoghurt section. 

“That’s flattering,” Remus buttoned and re-buttoned his shirt’s top button. “I get the feeling magic doesn’t require hours of debugging,”

“Which do you prefer? Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry? Or…Christ, what is this… _Birthday Cake_? How is this a flavour?” Hermione wrinkled her nose as she took in her options.

Ignoring that ridiculous voice inside his head encouraging him to kiss away that silly face she was making, Remus opened his mouth to explain how chocolate _ice-cream_ should always be the _only_ contender. Before he could utter a response however, someone beat him to the punch.

“Hermione?” 

As one, the two roommates turned to look down the aisle. Hermione schooled her expression into one of polite confusion. 

“Hello,” she smiled faintly at the approaching figure. 

Perhaps there wasn’t such a thing as love at first sight, Remus thought. But there was certainly such a thing as instant disdain. 

The man - no, the _boy_ he decided - was dressed in a polo shirt, and he was wearing a tight pair of trousers which didn’t reach past his ankles.

“Oh my god,” the interloper smirked as he stopped before the two roommates. “You don’t remember me do you?”

“Um…actually…no,” Hermione said slowly. “Should I?”

“After all we shared that night?” the tall creature pressed a palm to his chest where presumably his heart was. “You told me I was the best lover you’ve ever had in your life, or don’t you remember?”

“Bloody hell,” Hermione sputtered. “I would certainly have remembered _that_!”  
The boy had the grace to look embarrassed as his eyes flicked between the duo standing in front of him. Quickly, his expression morphed into one of deep alarm as he took in Remus’s scowl.

“That was a joke,” his cheeks grew unflatteringly red. “Aaaaaaand you would be the boyfriend. Shitfuckshit I did not sleep with this woman so please don’t hit me. Oh my god. I’m making an arse of myself…I’ll be running off to die in a corner now, so if you’ll please excuse me…”

Turning, the young man made to flee. Just as Remus was about to emit a sigh of relief, Hermione ruined the moment by saying hastily, “No wait a second. He’s not my…he’s _just_ my roommate. Anyway, you clearly know my name, so I must have told it to you at some point. The question is, who are _you_ , and how do we know each other?” 

The meathead peered tentatively at Remus, who was trying to pretend his roommate’s words hadn’t stung. Deciding it was safe, the idiot swivelled his attention back towards Hermione.

“I’m Oliver Wood. You and I, we met at that pub a few weeks ago… _Merchant and Mills_ I think it was. You were there with some ginger bloke and his girlfriend, downing shots of tequila. I bought you a drink, and then you…”

The kid hesitated.

“You kissed me,” he concluded. Beside Remus, Hermione seemed caught between mortification and fascination. “You snogged the hell out of me, actually. I kept asking for your number, but you kept blurting out something about text messages and notifications. You were _really_ smashed that night,”

_Ron. Of course this was Ron’s fault._

For her part, his roommate’s eyes were genuinely wide and filled with surprise as she blurted out, “I am so sorry!”

“Sorry? What for?” Oliver looked confused. 

Taking a calming breathe, Remus found himself wanting to inform the interloper that the woman standing to his left wasn’t anyone’s to kiss, or to touch, or…to _anything_. Hermione was off limits. Except…

Except he couldn’t, could he? These days, Hermione was very much her own agent. So what if she were still technically married to Cormac? The woman had been legally separated for two whole months…it was exactly the right time for her to start thinking about jumpstarting her love life all over again.

Tightening his grip around the handles of his shopping basket, Remus waited to hear what his roommate had to say.

“I’m sorry for…molesting you?” Hermione laughed uncertainly, reaching a hand up to pick nervously at her curls.

“Actually, your molestation was very much welcome,” Oliver shuffled closer. In his hand, he was holding onto a box of crackers and a lump of neon yellow cheddar. 

“That’s very sweet of you,” his roommate giggled. 

Fighting off a wave of nausea, Remus understood what was about to happen two feet away from him.

 _Say something_ , a hysterical voice hissed in his brain. _Anything. Don’t just stand there like a lump._

“Do you think you might want to grab a drink some time?” the smarmy git asked. “With me, in case that wasn’t clear?”

“That sounds really nice,” Hermione answered after a beat. 

Spinning on his heel, Remus strode along the wall of freezers and glared blindly at a ludicrously large array of frozen pizza. 

_Idiot man._

Of course this was bound to happen. Of course some ridiculously handsome bloke was going to come along and sweep her off her feet. Ever since the day he suggested that she stay on permanently as his roommate, he had been bracing himself for such an eventuality. 

So why the hell was he behaving as if what had just transpired was so unexpected?

“Are we having a few pizza dinners this weekend?” Hermione inquired curiously at his elbow. 

Glancing down, Remus realized that in his distracted state, he had grabbed about five different kinds of frozen pizzas, and he had stuffed them all into his shopping basket. 

“It’s fast, it’s tasty,” he improvised, shutting the tampered glass door. “Did you give that to… _gentleman_ your number?”

“I did,” she blushed again. “Not sure if the word ‘gentleman’ is exactly right…we’ll see I suppose,”

Even _now_ , Remus found her fetching. Fucking hell but Sirius had been right - he really was head over heels for her.

“Good,” he managed to keep his voice from shaking. “Great. I mean, I’m glad you’re getting back into that saddle. That saddle being dating. Which leads to sex, which leads to…”

“…fear. Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering…” the woman joked as she poked through his frozen food selections. 

Trust Hermione to start channelling Yoda at a moment like this, Remus thought despairingly as he fell in love with her just a little bit more. How far gone was he, that he didn’t care that she was quoting from a bloody _prequel_?

“Don’t start planning my next wedding though. We’re getting _one_ drink next Tuesday. Who knows, I might even let him buy me a second round,”

“Oh,” Remus nodded dumbly. 

“Whose turn is it to make dinner?” Hermione inquired, apparently ignorant to the fact that she was trying to make conversation with a lunatic.

“Yours,” he answered without thinking.

“Oh,” she screwed her face up. “Would you care for frozen pizza? It’s tasty, or so I hear,”

Forcing his breathing to slow, Remus sighed. “If we must,”


	13. Planting Season: Chapter 5

**Remus**

“This isn’t the end of the world,” Sirius advised on Tuesday as they shared an after-work drink. “You don’t want to be her rebound boyfriend. Trust me on this - she’s going to use this boy up and throw him out like yesterday’s lunch,”

“No, see, that’s where you’re wrong. She’s obviously going to ride off with him into the sunset, then they’re going to have dozens of fat babies, and then I’m going to _die_ , miserable and alone like some sad loser,” Remus bemoaned.

“Dozens of…Remus, are you even listening to yourself?” Sirius scoffed, banging his emptied glass on the sticky wooden table between them. “Hermione has been quite empathetic about never becoming another Molly Weasley. Which, by the way, is why it never worked out between Ron and her, in case you’ve forgotten,”

“I don’t know,” Remus growled darkly. “I suppose I should be supportive or something. She’s my friend and all that,”

“This thing will run its course,” Sirius waved away his concerns.

Groaning dramatically - again - Remus drained his glass.

“What happened to that Monica woman you were seeing?” his best friend asked after a moment. “You know, the one you hinted had massive tits,”

“Jesus, do you not have a single subtle bone in your body? Anyway, I wasn’t interested,” Remus said morosely. “She’s a Trekkie”

“Did you at least…”

“No,”

“Why not?” Sirius sounded impatient. “Seriously, you need to get _laid_. That might stop all this moaning. You need to do the horizontal tango, make the beast with two backs…you need to play a game of hide the…”

“Why are you like this? I mean, have you ever considered speaking with a therapist?” Remus rubbed exasperatedly at his forehead. “Look, I wasn’t interested in her as a person,”

“I’m not sure what that’s got to do with getting laid,” Sirius seemed genuinely confused.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Remus smiled wryly. “Another round?”

“That sounds wonderful. Then maybe we can talk about the state of _my_ love life for a change,” his companion noted. “For instance, have I mentioned I’ve started seeing this lovely girl who happens to look stunning whenever she wears nothing?”

“Right,” Remus stood up. “Copious amounts of whiskey it is,”

***

Arriving home, he was surprised to see that the house appeared to be fully lit. Which could only mean Hermione was home…and not on her stupid date.

Feeling slightly more hopeful than he had been at the pub, Remus bounded up the steps leading to his front door and let himself in. Closing the door behind him, he called cautiously, “Anyone home?”

“Just myself and my new friend,” Hermione responded.

Pausing, Remus wondered for a second if he was eventually going to _die_ from having his emotions fluctuate like a goddamn rollercoaster. Slowly, he wandered into the living room, fearing what it was he would find…

Hermione sat on the sofa, with a very orange cat sprawled across her lap. The creature purred contentedly in his direction.

“You have a cat,” he stated, not exactly sure if it was relief he was experiencing. Helpfully, he clarified, “It’s sitting on your legs,”

“Your observational skills truly are spectacular,” Hermione teased. “In case you’re wondering, which I have a feeling you are, I found this magnificent beast wandering about the back garden when I got home, absolutely _screaming_ to be let indoors. I have no idea how she got into the garden in the first place - I think she fell from the ledge between your home and Mrs. Zabini’s property…thankfully, she’s not broken anything. I think she might belong to one of the neighbours,”

Considering how sleek the creature’s fur was, and how fat she looked, the cat was almost definitely somebody’s spoiled house pet who accidentally got herself let out. Carefully, he moved to sit beside Hermione and her new, furry friend.

“Weren’t you supposed to be out with that…er…Eric? Aaron?” he asked, as if he didn’t know full well that the boy’s name was _Oliver_.

“I did go out with Oliver. We had a nice time…he’s very…” Hermione paused.

There was something in her dark eyes which made Remus want desperately to give in to temptation and just kiss her already. He hated the thought that she might have bestowed upon that sockless hipster twat, the look of raw lust she was currently wearing.

“He’s very, _very_ pretty,” she concluded.

“You shouldn’t objectify people,” Remus admonished with false severity as he did his best to remember Sirius’s assurances this was all just a phase. “In your shoes, I’d probably be trying to shag half the city,”

What he was supposed to do when this _phase_ was over, when she was ready to launch herself into a serious relationship with a serious boyfriend…that was anyone’s guess.

Perhaps he would move himself to a monastery in Belgium…one of those that doubled as a beer brewery. Yes, that might work…

Idly, he wondered how badly Brexit was going to affect those immigration plans.

“That sounds exhausting,” Hermione screwed her face up. “I haven’t decided if I’d like to take him home to be honest. Oliver’s pretty but he’s a bit vapid,”

The cat in his roommate's lap blinked up at her new human, wondering why it wasn’t getting any more attention. After a moment, it swivelled its ugly head to glare at Remus. Clearly, the creature had decided he was to blame, for why there were no more soft, gentle pets being laid across its twitching ears.

“ _She’s_ …um…very pretty too,” he gazed uncertainly down at the feline. “But if she’s the neighbour’s cat, shouldn’t we put her back outside so she can find her way home? I’m sure some little girl is missing her best friend,”

“Or,” Hermione looked hopefully at him. “Or, we could take care of her until posters start popping up. Then we can give her back to whomever lost her. Personally, _I_ think that’s the most reasonable course of action. I mean, can you imagine this gentle creature trying to survive the outside world?”

 _Oh for fuck’s…_ Remus rubbed at his face.

The woman beside him had some very serious blind spots when it came to cats. No matter what she believed, her last pet Pepper had been anything but a sweet soul. Back before she had married McLaggen, he had met the creature a few times, and he still had several faint scars running down the length of his arm to show for those encounters. The only reason he had tolerated the feline was because of, well, _Hermione_.

God only knew who Pepper was terrorizing these days, and if she left any survivors.

“Brilliant plan,” he rasped, mentally bidding farewell to his sofa and its current pristine condition.

“You hear that Crookshanks?” Hermione coo-ed as she caressed thick, shiny fur. “You’re staying with us for a while,”  
“You named her,” Remus observed flatly. “I mean, why wouldn’t you?”

“I _did_ name her. Isn’t Crookshanks such a sweet name?”

Gesturing vaguely, Remus hoped he was conveying approval and understanding, rather than dread, confusion and hopeless infatuation. That last bit was for her, not the purring orange blob.

“By the way, Oliver wanted to see me again on Saturday, but I told him I’d have to check with you,” Hermione said casually.

 _That’s it, he was definitely going to die from having his feelings soar and dip every five minutes,_ Remus understood with stunning alacrity.

“I mean, we already have those plans,” she continued, studying his carefully blanked expression. “You know…that talk we wanted to attend, about feminism and its place in modern science fiction?”

Right. Those Plans. Plans which he had utterly forgotten about, which was why he had lined up his own date with a woman named Irma for Saturday night.

Not that he had wanted to go to that talk in the first place…he might like science fiction and he certainly identified himself as a feminist of sorts, but frankly, the topic sounded about as exciting as watching paint dry. Surely, this was some sort of god-sent opportunity for him to get out of what would most likely be an hour of trauma-inducing boredom. Really, he would be a fool not to seize this chance of escape…

“Oh…right. Damn. I was _really_ looking forwards to that talk,” Remus said thoughtfully. “I had it marked in my calendar and everything. But I mean, don’t hold yourself back on my account, I’m sure I’ll have just as much fun going alone…sitting there with a crowd of strangers…”

Definitely, it was _this_ lie that going to send him straight to hell the moment he breathed his last.

“That settles it,” Hermione shook her head. “I’ll see Oliver next Wednesday. Which works out perfectly, actually. If anything does happen between us, the fact that it’s a school night will make it easier for me to bugger off after we…well, you know…do the _deed_ ,”

His roommate paused and blushed. In a hushed whisper, she added, “By ‘deed’, I mean _sex_ ,”

“Yes, I…” Remus squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes, I understood what you meant. Thank you for the explanation,”

“I don’t fancy giving anyone the impression that I’m in the market for anything serious right now I guess,” she sighed. “Spending the night seems to be the exact wrong thing to do, based on every blog I’ve been reading,”

Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, Remus smiled understandingly, though he felt sick to his stomach.

 _Phase_ , he reminded himself.

“Alright, I’m going to see if any shops are still open,” Hermione lifted the cat from her lap and plopped the furry intruder onto his white rug.

“What? Why?” he asked, staring suspiciously at the creature he knew had just become his house pet.

“She’s going to need a litter box for as long as she’s here,” Hermione said cheerfully as she hurried for the front door. “And food,”

Once Hermione was gone, Remus turned towards his feline companion. Very sternly, he said, “Do not scratch my sofa. Or my curtains. Not if you don’t want to get tossed out on your fat arse,”

Judging from the way she was staring calmly up at him, Crookshanks - if that was even her name - knew an empty threat when she heard one. Turning on the telly, Remus leaned back into his cushions with a beleaguered sigh. Digging his iPhone from his pocket, he found Irma’s contact and typed out a brief apology, along with a half-hearted plea to re-schedule.

As he tapped ‘send’, a pile of orange fluff leapt nimbly onto his lap.

Assured that his nice trousers were probably ruined forever, Remus began the arduous process of petting the fat ginger parasite.

***

Remus awoke to the sound of frantic knocking. The racket, it seemed, was coming from the front door.

Blinking irritably, he dragged himself out of his bed, wondering who the hell was interrupting what was supposed be a peaceful Sunday.

The night before had passed in an unexpectedly and exceedingly enjoyable manner in the company of his favourite (and only) roommate.

Although the seminar they attended was every bit as dry and boring as he feared it would be, Remus had thoroughly enjoyed sitting with his side pressed up against Hermione’s own, among the surprisingly packed seats of the tiny auditorium.

He liked how she ducked her head to offer her own, brilliant opinions throughout the talk, he enjoyed _listening_ to those brilliant opinions…and guiltily, he had relished the way her soft lips felt, as they brushed up against the shell of his ear every time she wanted to tell him something.

Most of the other attendees did not share his appreciation of Hermione’s verbosity…but that was, in his opinion, _their_ problem rather than his.

After the talk, the both of them wiled the evening away at a local wine bar, getting steadily tipsier and tipsier throughout the night. At last, crossing the threshold of their shared front entrance, she had collapsed against him in a fit of giggles, laughing at some joke he had made hours ago.

In a bid to keep her from falling over, Remus wrapped a steadying arm around her waist, whereupon Hermione had gazed up at him in what appeared _almost_ to be adoration…

As he observed her flushed face and her bright eyes, Remus’s drunken brain began trying to work.

Both Sirius and Harry spoke occasionally of a mythical time in history, when Hermione had been infatuated with him. Assuming their idiotic theories held any true weight, was it all that ludicrous to consider that perhaps Hermione _might_ have rekindled a measure of her old affections for him? After all, in the months since she had moved into his house, the two of them had become far closer than ever they used to be.

Escorting her to her room, Remus had barely been able to tear himself away from her. But remove himself he did, though not before she pressed several insistent kisses to his cheek as her way of bidding him good night.

Slipping under his covers a few minutes after, a twinge of guilt twisted at his heartstrings as he considered that he was daydreaming about another woman, whilst laying on what was ostensibly his marital bed.

Despite that brief flash of sourness however, the memory of Hermione’s lips on his skin had stayed with him as he drifted off…

Hurrying down the stairs towards the sound of furious knocking, the hazy pleasant feeling he had gained from the previous evening receded at a horrifyingly rapid rate.

Tying off his pyjama bottoms, and dragging on his shirt as he went, Remus glanced warily towards his roommate’s door, and hoped fervently that whomever was causing such a ruckus wasn’t someone _unwelcome_. Assuming he found McLaggen on his front step, Remus rather doubted he would be able to hold himself back from throwing a fist into the other man’s face. That wanker had another think coming if he thought he was coming anywhere close to Hermione ever again.

Flinging open his front entrance, Remus opened his mouth with every intention of loosing a rude tirade upon their unwelcome visitor…only to stop dead in his tracks as he set eyes on two familiar faces. One of those faces, he hadn’t laid eyes on for about three and a half years…

Which was exactly around the time Hermione had gotten herself engaged to that tiresome arse-face Mclaggen to begin with.

“I’m here for my daughter,” Emma Granger declared, raising her chin defiantly. “Remus John Lupin, you should be _ashamed_ of yourself for keeping her from me,”

Behind Hermione’s mother, Molly Weasley stood, wringing worriedly at her hands.

Opening and shutting his mouth like an idiotic goldfish, Remus’s first instinct was to set the irate woman straight. It was _she_ who had abandoned her own daughter in the first place, at a time when Hermione needed her most. That she was now on his doorstep accusing _him_ of committing something heinous felt vaguely incongruous at best, and fucking out-of-line at worst.

“Remus, who in the _bloody_ hell is banging at our door at this god-forsaken hour on a Sunday morning?” Hermione demanded from the depths of the house as she descended the stairs in halting intervals.

They had lived together long enough, Remus knew his roommate was stopping at every third step to rub sleepily at her eyes. Right now, she was fussing at her sleep-mussed curls, and yawning into her fist.

For a wild moment, the man considered slamming his door in the women’s faces. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself sweeping Hermione back upstairs; he pictured himself keeping her safely tucked away within the confines of _his_ bedroom until the world went away…

The only thing preventing him from doing such a thing, was the understanding that the woman would not thank him for such a presumptuous gesture.

“Hermione? Sweetheart?” Emma Granger called very loudly as she pushed past Remus.

“Mum?” Hermione’s voice floated down, sounding suddenly incredibly lost.

Turning his glare towards Molly, Remus crossed his arms.

“I didn’t think she would…” the Weasley Matriarch started. “I just thought she had a right…”

He made a noise.

“I was trying to _help_ ,” she concluded dismally.

“Oh for…” Remus sighed. “Fine, just come in. Christ, I haven’t even had a fucking coffee. I suppose you’d like one too wouldn’t you?”

“If you don’t mind,” Molly squeaked.

Shaking his head, he stepped aside and waved her in.

***

The thing about Molly Weasley, was that she _wasn’t_ a bad person. The woman didn’t have a malicious bone in her body.

The _problem_ with Molly Weasley, had to do with the fact that she never seemed to know when to stop mothering, and when to start behaving like a normal, human _friend_.

Immediately after Tonks death, the woman had descended on Remus in a cloud of maternal concern and affection. In her mind, she seemed to labour under the impression that she was fulfilling the role of his own dead mother, the late Hope Howell. For days, she had bombarded him with cooked food, and overly solicitous inquires into his well-being. She showed up at his door unannounced, and tried more than once, to tidy up his home without him expressly asking for her help.

When it turned out that Hermione had already pulled the funeral together without requiring any of her professional input, or more precisely, when Molly found out that she had been _upstaged_ by this strange, _practically foreign_ Granger girl, the Matriarch had literally pouted in response.

The whole situation culminated with a grieving, exhausted, and slightly drunk Remus informing Molly that her attentions were not in fact, welcome. With some rather explicit words, he told her _exactly_ where she might want to stuff her well-meant gestures, along with her seemingly endless supply of Shepherd’s Pie.

Those words might have been the words of a man in pain, but they didn’t exactly go over well. In the ensuing years, although they remained civil to each other at social functions he was forced to attend for the sake of Harry and Ginny, the rift between the two of them had never properly mended.

Thus when Hermione had insisted quite vehemently that Molly was not to be told of her predicament, Remus had only been too happy to acquiesce. The thought of that woman running in and out of his house - again - served to bring up memories he would much rather leave buried in the past.

Unfortunately, the both of them might have done well to remember that there was a set of loose lips in their circle of allies. They should have guarded against the very likely possibility that Ronald-bloody-Weasley might have run his mouth off to his mother.

Had they done their due diligence all those months ago, in the present, Remus would very likely not have found himself standing awkwardly in his (lately) manicured back garden, with an equally ill-at-ease Molly.

“The place looks nice,” Molly said, gazing in wonder at the ripened tomatoes. Clearly, she was having trouble reconciling what she was seeing, against memories of his un-kept garden from years prior.

Remus grunted, trying to work out how far back in time he had to travel, and which events he had to meddle with, in order to fully avoid the conversation he was currently entrenched in.

“Are those peony bushes?” the Weasley Matriarch asked a little desperately. “Very elegant blossoms when they’re blooming. Brides love them. I seem to recall Hermione asking for them when she was planning her weddi…”

Molly fell silent under the weight of Remus’s glare. She had the grace to flush in embarrassment as her brain finally caught up to her mouth.

“The state of this garden is all thanks Hermione,” he said stiffly, before taking a sip of his steaming coffee. “She did this,”

“Oh,” she cast him a wide-eyed look. “I didn’t realize she was actually _living_ here. I thought it was a temporary thing,”

“You didn’t know, because we didn’t _tell_ you,”

Molly pondered his response for a long moment. Then, very softly and a little shamefacedly, she confessed, “I was honestly just trying to help. If it were one of my children who had been…who had to deal with such a horrible thing, I would have wanted to know,”

“She’s not your daughter,” Remus pointed out uncharitably.

“Right,” she nodded her head miserably.

“Look…she’s still recovering from that whole mess with McLaggen,” Remus ran a tired hand through his sandy hair. “We were moving at her pace, to see how she wanted to break the news over time to her circle of family and friends,”

“I suppose I mucked it up,” Molly sounded close to tears.

Twisting his lips, Remus realized that the horrible feeling in his chest was guilt.

Sighing, he slumped his shoulders, took another sip of coffee, and said, “Nah. It’s all McLaggen. Let’s all stop apologizing for what that dickhead did,”

“I hope you beat the stuffing out of him,” Molly wiped at her cheeks. “You or Harry, or Sirius…”

“Hermione did that all on her own,” Remus informed the sniffling woman. “She punched him in the face, and broke his balls. You should have been there Molly, it was fucking glorious,”

For a moment, she stared uncomprehendingly at him. Then, without warning, a grin burst across her features, lighting up her expression so that Remus remembered all at once that he never really hated her.

“Good on her,” she laughed delightedly. “That’s my girl,”

“Right,” Remus rocked on his heels, feeling slightly better about how his morning was going.

In silence, they stood together, enjoying what was possibly the last, almost-warm weekend of the year.


	14. Planting Season: Chapter 6

**Hermione**

All day Tuesday, Hermione wondered if perhaps she had overdone her prep work.

For one thing, she was actually wearing a _dress_. For another, she was actually wearing lipstick and a smidge of eyeshadow. It didn’t help that Luna spent an entire meeting frowning vaguely in her direction, as if she wasn't exactly sure what had changed.

Once or twice, she caught Severus glowering oddly in her direction.

“Did I forget a report?” she asked in confusion as she passed his desk.

“No, of course not,” he snorted. “Hot date tonight is it?”

“Sort of,” Hermione had shrugged in response. “First date at any rate,”

For whatever reason, her answer simply caused him to glare harder. Strolling away from her lunatic manager’s desk, she put Severus out of her mind, in favour of obsessing over the passage of time. Keenly, Hermione observed the minutes ticking closer, ever closer to her appointment with Oliver.

At about three in the afternoon, she caved and did the unthinkable. Texting Lavender, she asked in trepidation, <Can you tell me if this is too much for a first date?>

Standing in the bathroom, she took a photo of her reflection and hit ‘send’.

Two seconds later, a barrage of texts poured in.

<DATE??>  
<Who?>  
<OMFG. You look adorbs!>  
<Where are you meeting him?>  
<Does Remus know?>  
<Photos?!?!?!>  
<Of the guy obvs>

Hermione frowned at her phone. Of course Remus knew she was going on a date, why wouldn’t he? Though…come to think of it, why did it matter if he knew or not?

Ignoring Lavender’s usual brand of insanity, Hermione explained the situation, and who it was she was going out with. Then, very patiently, she asked again, <Can you tell me if this outfit works for a first date? Or should I go home and throw on some jeans?>

<Its fine>, Lavender wrote back, apparently not understanding the significance of an apostrophe. <Stay safe! ;)>

Lavender’s last message was an eggplant emoji, accompanied by a few other innocuous graphics…which, when put together as a whole made Hermione flush to the tips of her roots.

Nonetheless, relieved that she wasn’t in fact overdoing it with her outfit, she wrote back her sincere thanks to Ron’s girlfriend.

***

Thirty nerve-wracking minutes into waiting for her date to show, Hermione's anxiety returned with a vengeance. Seated in a very trendy cocktail bar with an overpriced drink set in front of her, the woman checked her messages discreetly and repeatedly, wondering where the hell Oliver was.

It was only as the time ticked closer to seven-thirty, that Hermione decided to face certain, unpleasant facts: very obviously, she was being stood up, and clearly her erstwhile date had no intention of actually meeting her.

Forcing back a sharp stab of disappointment, she picked up her drink and drained her glass. Picking up her bag, she would have strode off into the night had Oliver not chosen that very moment to barrel in through the front door of the small establishment.

“I’m so sorry I was late!” he gasped by way of greeting as he dashed up to her. “I got held up at work, and there was some sort of delay on the…”

“That’s perfectly understandable,” Hermione smiled in abject relief, even as a familiar voice at the back of her head demanded to know why the boy hadn’t even _tried_ to drop her a text, to let her know he wasn’t going to be on time.

That would be Remus’s voice echoing in her fraying mind of course. The man had been a stickler for punctuality for as long as she had known him.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he grinned sheepishly as he ran his fingers through his dark locks.

“I don’t see why not,” she said, stubbornly blocking out images of sandy blonde hair, and someone else’s brilliant smile.

The rest of the date passed in a surreal haze, as Hermione tried her best to understand how such a creature as Oliver could possibly exist.

“ _Exercising_ is your favourite pastime?” she asked as she wrapped an insecure arm around her midriff where a small wine gut had been steadily developing over the course of the past few months.

 _Damn Remus and his spectacular taste in French reds_ , she thought a tad sulkily.

“When I’m not in the office, I’m usually lifting at the gym,” Oliver said without a hint of irony. “Or kissing pretty girls in bars,”

“Oh?” Hermione smiled weakly, as she deliberately ignored the backhanded - and rather lame - compliment her date had just awarded her.

“I have this romantic fantasy, see, where the next girl I kiss, will be the girl I finally take home to meet my mother. My mum’s forever worried her little Ollie will never get properly settled,” Oliver explained earnestly. “So far, my plan hasn’t exactly worked out, but I have a good feeling about you,”

Gulping down her too-sweet cocktail, Hermione wondered if Oliver was actually working on a side career in comedy, because truly, he was being downright _hysterical_. Now, if only she could find it within herself to start laughing at half the things that came out of his mouth…

“Frankly, I’m looking forwards to finding out,” Oliver’s gaze dropped to her lips.

All rational thought ground to a halt in the woman’s slightly tipsy brain as she took in the shape of firm biceps underneath a tight polo shirt. Christ but this boy was _fit_ …

Licking her lips, the woman tossed all caution to the wind.

“Shall we jumpstart your research then,” Hermione murmured invitingly.

“What?” he blinked at her.

“I mean…” she tried not to grimace. “Why don’t you come over here and kiss me?”

Oliver didn’t need to be asked twice. Enthusiastically, he reached over and cupped one hand against the curve of her cheek. Drawing close, Hermione’s eyes fluttered shut…

“I _really_ enjoyed kissing you that time at _Merchant and Mills_ ,” he said cheerily. “Hey, maybe someday, that’s a story we can tell our childre…”

Deciding she really didn’t want to hear the rest of his monologue, Hermione closed the distance between their faces and pressed her lips firmly against his own.

As far as kisses went, Oliver was…alright. His lips were soft, true, and he seemed to know what he was doing with his tongue. There was something the matter with his arms however. For some reason, the boy seemed not to know what to do with his upper limbs. On and on he fidgeted, seemingly incapable of making a decision about whether he wanted to touch her face or her waist or her shoulders.

Throughout the course of their rather lacklustre embrace, he managed to elbow her. Twice. It really was quite a feat, considering how they were positioned.

Pulling away from him, Hermione peered critically at her companion.

“I don’t have an early morning meeting tomorrow,” she started, wondering if she was going about this right. There weren’t exactly proper guidebooks, detailing the methods by which one went about initiating flings and one-night-stands. There was _wikiHow_ she supposed, but all the advice on there seemed dubious at best.

“Unfortunately, _I_ have to get in early,” he tapped at her nose like she was a little girl. Fighting off a scowl, Hermione slipped a gentle hand onto the boy’s upper thigh, hoping he’d take the hint.

“I have to get my boss his coffee first thing, or he’d be a pain for the rest of the day,”

“It doesn’t have to be all night,” she smiled her most winning smile.

Laughing, Oliver kissed her lightly. “How about Saturday? We can go for dinner, maybe catch a film…”

“Saturday?” Hermione straightened. “I have to check with my roommate. I think we already have plans,”

“Your roommate,” Oliver’s face fell. “The one who was with you at Waitrose?”

“Yes that’s the one,” Hermione nodded. “We have plans to attend a talk about feminism in science fiction,”

“That sounds really dull,” her date said quite bluntly.

Pasting on a fake smile, she tried to remember that she wanted one thing out of Oliver, and one thing only. “If not Saturday, I’m sure we can work something out,”

Those gorgeous lips of his quirked up in an eager half-smile. “That sounds fantastic,"

As he leaned in for another kiss, Hermione caught a glimpse of several incoming text messages on the screen of her phone.

<How’s your date? Is it terrible? Just tell me it’s terrible even if it’s not true, because fucking reasons>  
<I’m not joking. I need to tell you’re idiot roommate he’s wrong>  
<He keeps insisting your going to marry this bloke>  
<whoever he is>

Ignoring what was obviously a series of drunk texts from Sirius Black, Hermione allowed herself to hope that maybe Oliver was better at sex than he was at kissing.

After all, he was so very pretty, and it would such a waste if she didn’t at least give him another try…

***

On Saturday evening, Hermione tugged on a pair of jeans and an old t-shirt. Atop the bureau, Crookshanks observed her every move with idle interest as she flicked her tail back and forth.

Aside from being an extremely pretty creature, her new kitty friend was actually delightfully affectionate, and incredibly sweet. When the feline wasn’t purring and demanding pets, she often settled herself beside her fellow housemates, simply revelling in human company as the bipeds watched television, or worked on their laptops.

Day after day, Hermione did her utmost to seek out posters in the neighbourhood, about missing felines who were much missed by their families. With every day that passed however, the woman found herself becoming increasingly attached to the roly-poly cat.

Deep in her heart, she knew it wasn’t the healthiest thing for her, exactly. After all, any day now, a stranger might show up at the door, demanding her new and stripey friend back.

The problem, ultimately, was that the woman was finding it hard _not_ to become attached to many facets of her new life. Such as…the place in which she was currently residing…and the man with whom she shared a bedroom wall.

Bad enough she had resurrected her old infatuation for Remus Lupin…these days, her feelings had gotten so much worse. No matter what she was doing and who she was talking to, somehow, her thoughts kept on returning to the man who shared a bedroom wall with her.

Still, facts were facts. Ever since she moved into the townhouse, Remus had began making a serious go at kick-starting his love life once more. Not that she could possibly blame the man. After so long spent mourning Tonks, it was only to be expected that he was ready to start something fresh.

While none of his dates ever went beyond the first, Hermione wasn’t going to delude herself into believing that he was never going to find someone he actually liked. Or believing that Remus was secretly in love with his lonely roommate, who spent a lot of her time pretending she wasn’t mooning after him.

Sooner or later, one of those dates would likely lead to something serious, something long-term. After all, what woman in her right frame of mind would turn down a man like Remus? Outside of being attractive as all hell, he was also sweet, intelligent and funny…

The day he found himself a partner, would also be the day she had to start flat-hunting all over again - and she would do well to remember that.

Taking one last look at her reflection, Hermione reached for her purse, and stroked fondly at Crookshanks’s ears before she hurried out her bedroom. Reaching the top of the stairway, she stopped abruptly and inhaled sharply.

Immediately downstairs, Remus stood with one shoulder leaning against the wall, with his feet crossed at the ankles. The man was scrolling through his phone, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had an avid observer.

In Hermione’s dazed opinion, no one had any right to look as delicious as Remus currently did. For goodness sake, he was wearing an old blazer that had seen better _decades_ , over a shirt that had never once met the underside of an iron.

Biting back her urge to dash back to the safety of her bedroom, away from the forbidden fruit that was her stupidly gorgeous roommate, Hermione descended the stairs step by aching step.

Remus glanced up at her, and smiled at her with that brilliant grin of his.

“We’re going to be late if you keep that pace up,” he teased as he tucked his phone away.

“The talk doesn’t start for an hour yet,” she wished her mouth hadn’t gotten so dry. “And it’s not like these things ever start on time,”

“This isn’t a concert Hermione, there isn’t an opening band,” he joked. “Much as I was looking forwards to this talk, if you’ve changed your mind, we could go see a film instead… if _you_ want that is. Maybe after that, we could have dinner at that new Spanish place we’ve been talking about trying,”

Would she rather sit in a dark room right beside Remus for hours? The answer was very ‘yes’.

“I _really_ want to hear this talk,”

Hermione was lying. She didn’t want to go to that talk. She had only suggested going because she thought _he_ might enjoy the topic, and she had wanted an excuse to spend time with him on a Saturday night.

Feminism in Science Fiction sounded like an extremely intellectual topic, but in truth, Oliver had the right of it when he said the event sounded dull.

Shoving aside the wistful notion that the activities Remus had just suggested sounded a lot like the makings of an actual date - a good one, at that - the woman turned to retrieve a blue cardigan from a nearby hook.

Had she only tilted her gaze, she might have caught her roommate’s expression of adoring reverence, as he fixed his eyes upon her oblivious profile…

Which would probably have saved the both of them a lot of trouble over the coming few days.  
***

Following a night of far too much wine and temptation, Hermione woke up on Sunday morning to the shocking sound of her mild-mannered roommate swearing a blue streak.

Drawn unceremoniously into wakefulness, the woman took note of an irate female voice, as someone demanded to be let into the townhouse. Groaning, she rubbed sleepily at her eyes as she stumbled out of bed. Automatically, she reached for her mobile phone and clutched at it like a talisman against evil.

Stomping down the stairs, she rasped, “Remus, who in the _bloody_ hell is banging at our door at this god-forsaken hour on a Sunday morning?”

When she received no answer, the woman descended another three steps.

As she came in sight of the foyer, the last person in the world Hermione expected to see, popped into view, in a cloud of Chanel and scarlet damask.

“Hermione?”

The older woman appeared far thinner than she had three years ago, though she was still as coiffed as ever.

“Oh god…”

“Sweetheart!” Hermione’s mother practically sobbed as she rushed up the stairs.

With her iPhone still grasped firmly in one fist, the young woman wrapped her arms around Emma Granger, and did the only sensible thing she could think to do.

She burst into loud, obnoxious tears.

***

By the time she had assured everyone - especially a worried Remus - that she was not going to break down sobbing again anytime soon, Hermione had also managed to ignore that crushing embarrassment that always came with crying in public.

Giving her housemate an idiotic thumbs-up, she jerked her head towards the kitchen in an unmistakable signal that she would like to be left alone with her mother. As Remus and their other guest left the room, Hermione cast Molly a pointed look of cool disdain.

Left alone in the living room, the two women sat facing each other in crushing silence. With her emotional outburst behind her, Hermione found herself at a complete loss for words.

In the end, it was her mother who broke first. Shakily, the older woman asked, “Why didn’t you come home?”

There weren’t any words Hermione could have used that might not hurt her Mum terribly. Still, the woman knew she owed it to Emma to at least _try_.

“I made a mess. It was only fair that I cleaned up after myself,” Hermione allowed her gaze to fall away from her mother’s own.

The years sat between them like an immense stone barrier, and not for the first time, Hermione regretted her part in placing it there to begin with.

“You shouldn’t say that,” Emma told her. “This wasn’t your mess. It was that no good husband of yours…”

“Ex,” Hermione said automatically. “Ex-husband,”

“That _ex_ -husband of yours. This was all his fault, all of it,” her mother’s chin wobbled. “I always knew he was a bastard. Now look what he’s done,”

The way her mother spoke, it was as if the other woman had forgotten that it was her vitriolic disdain for Cormac which had allowed their forming rift to become such a bitter divide to begin with.

Then again, perhaps Emma had never worked out for herself that the thick wall laying between mother and daughter, had not in fact, been placed there by Hermione’s hands alone.

“I _did_ try to warn you that smug tosser was bad news,”

“If you recall, you also accused me of wanting to marry Cormac for his money,” Hermione retorted pettily as she fell back on old habits without a thought. “I’m sure you can see why it had been so hard for me to take your words seriously back then, on _any_ level,”

To her credit, the older woman had the decency to flush in shame. “I was angry. I said things I shouldn’t have. But that boy made me so angry, coming into our house and implying that we were all beneath him…”

Forcing herself to rein in her temper at Cormac, herself and her family, Hermione chose to say nothing.

“When Molly told me what he did to you,” Emma reached out to touch her daughter’s hand. “I wanted to kill him myself. So will your father when he finds out…darling, he misses so you horribly,”

“Where’s Dad then?” Hermione couldn’t help but ask.

“He’s taking a bicycle tour through Romania…” Emma hesitated. “He retired a year ago you see, and wanted to do some travelling on his own,”

Another uncomfortable pause fell between them.

“You should ask Remus for his version of how I settled things with Cormac,” Hermione tried to keep her voice light. “I’m sure Dad would enjoy that story,”

“Oh don’t start about Remus. I’m so angry at him right now, you have no idea,” her mother exploded in disgust. “That man has some nerve, keeping this sort of thing from us,”

“Why shouldn’t he have kept it from you?” Hermione tilted her head to one side. Carefully, she disengaged her hand from her mother’s grasp.

“Because you’re my daughter,” Emma answered sharply. “He should have known better than to keep such things from me,”

“It’s not Remus’s fault. _I_ was the one who insisted on keeping things quiet,” Hermione stated curtly.

“Still,” her mother shook her head vehemently.

“No, not _’still’_ ,” Hermione rubbed tiredly at her forehead. Christ, she hadn’t even had her daily dose of caffeine yet. “The only people who know are Remus, Sirius and the boys…which of course, means that Ginny and Lavender both also know. But that was it,”

“Fine, but I suppose all that’s over anyhow,” Emma said dismissively. Straightening up as she peered at her surroundings. “Why don’t you pack your things and come home with me? I mean, this place is a bit cramped…I’m sure Remus would be glad to have you out of his hair,”

Emma Granger’s presumptive words were painfully infuriating. The way she spoke, it was as if she still saw her daughter as nothing more than an irritating child, who was putting the neighbours out.

“You understand I pay Remus rent money, right?” Hermione asked bluntly. “I’m not just _staying_ here, living off his kindness,”

“But…” her mother persisted. “It’s not sustainable is it? And is now really the best time for you to making big decisions all on your own?

Taking a deep breath, the young woman counted to ten, but it was useless. “I do hope you’re not implying that I’m not in my right state of mind,”

“Of course that’s not what I’m saying. I’m just a bit concerned you’re making rash decisions, same as you did when you…” Emma trailed off.

“When I married Cormac?” Hermione lifted a brow.

“I just meant…”

“Mother…I miss both you and Dad terribly. I have missed the both of you for the past three years. But don’t think for a moment that I am incapable of standing on my own two feet. I made mistakes, but I’m also _fixing_ my mistakes. I would appreciate if you tried _at least_ , to see that I’m not a feckless child anymore, especially one who is in need of your guidance,”

Across from her, Emma Granger’s distress was quite plain to see. On the wall above the telly, the old fashioned Seiko clock Remus maintained continued its steady, deafening march into the future.

Choking back her guilt, her resentment and her all-round chaotic emotions, Hermione admitted very softly, “All said…I would like it very much, if we did try to see each other more often…”

“I would like that too,” her mother said at last; her own dark eyes were filled with shameless moisture.

Smiling tentatively, Hermione wondered why life couldn’t simply be…easier.

***

The moment they were alone in the house, Hermione allowed her shoulders to sag. In the dim foyer, against her better judgement, she allowed Remus to draw her into his arms.

“Are you ok?” he asked as he nuzzled into her curls the way he had done hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop them…”

“Do you mind just…staying here with me for a moment and…” she shifted and tucked her head under Remus’s chin. Turning her face into his chest, she reached up and clutched at his shirt.

If she only closed her eyes, Hermione could pretend that everything was normal. She could pretend that the appearance of her mother hadn’t slammed her back into a far harsher reality than the one she had existed in, less than twelve hours ago.

“My own brave girl,” he murmured as he stroked her hair protectively. “I’ll be here as long as you need me. I promise. I’m so sorry…”

“Stop it,” she intoned tiredly. “You have nothing to be sorry for. I did this. I did all of it,”

Huddling tightly against her friend, Hermione waited for the storm to pass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the risk of making Hermione too attractive (*cough* Mary-Sue-ish), let's all remember that dating horror stories do happen (even when they're like the date with Oliver)


	15. Eight Days A Week: Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapter post!

**Monday (You can fall apart)**

**Remus**

Augusta Sinistra was a beautiful woman. Miserable and distracted as he usually felt these days, Remus was not in the end, _blind_.

Sending her a brief ‘hello’ one afternoon after perusing her brief profile - because really, he had absolutely nothing to lose - Remus had proceeded to tuck his phone away into his blazer pocket, on the assumption he would never hear back from her.

After all, the woman was a ten, and he was at best a five-point-five.

Two minutes later, when his phone buzzed with her immediate reply, the engineer had taken a a few minutes to fully comprehend what exactly was going on.

In the present, as Remus rose to his feet to greet his date for the evening, the man couldn’t help but find himself thinking of Ava Gardner at the height of her fame and beauty. Taking in Augusta’s dark, lustrous locks, her tiny waist and her full, pouty lips, he wondered for the hundredth time why the hell a woman like her had agreed to an after-work drink…with someone like _him_.

“Remus Lupin?” she inquired shyly as she extended a slender hand in his direction.

“Yes..hello,” he nodded with a polite smile.

At the back of his mind, he tried to work out how Augusta wasn’t currently on the arm of some fellow who owned at least five Learjets.

Or at the very least, Sirius.

Surreptitiously, the man checked his surroundings to see if anyone was recording footage of this meeting as some sort of YouTube joke.

“Hi…” she looked a bit uncertain as she observed his twitchy gestures.

 _You’re making an utter arse of yourself_ , Hermione’s voice echoed in his head.

“Sorry, I thought I saw someone I knew,” Remus snapped his attention back to his date. To his chagrin, he realized that he had yet to release his hold on her. As gracefully as he could, he let go of this strange - gorgeous - woman’s hand.

“Any idea what the whiskey selection here is like?” she asked, peering hopefully at the bar.

“Writer’s Tears,” he answered without thinking. That was the whiskey he was currently drinking. It was also the only whiskey he drank at home these days, considering how partial to the stuff his roommate was.

Shoving aside as best as he could, all thoughts of messy chestnut hair, dark eyes and a determined, heart-shaped face, Remus directed his attention towards his current companion.

They spent the next little while going through the routine of any regular first date. She told him she was a teacher, he told her he was an overpaid artist; she told him she enjoyed Stanley Kubrick, he explained why _2001: Space Odyssey_ was the best film ever made…

All in all, as far as first dates went, it wasn’t the worst.

“That was really nice,” Augusta told him as they stepped out of the pub an hour and a half later.

“It really was,” Remus agreed, and to his immense surprise, he mostly meant that sentiment.

Augusta grinned. Rocking on her heels, she caught his eye. “Maybe we could try actually having dinner next time,”

There was an awkward pause, during which Remus realized he was supposed to say something.

“I’m free this coming Wednesday,” he offered lamely as he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets.

 _Really?_ his own personal Hermione-voice demanded. _The night I’m going out with that pillock from the supermarket? Not very subtle Remus._

“Wednesdays are never any good. I’ve got yoga,” Augusta’s gaze grew anxious.

“Thursday then,” he countered immediately, more to silence the voice of an absent woman than to actually assure his date that he truly wanted to spend more time with her.

“Thursday sounds perfect,” she smiled in relief. Stepping in close, she tilted her face up towards him. There was something expectant in her gaze. “I’m already looking forwards to it,”

Swallowing, Remus leaned down and touched his lips to hers.

Their kiss was incredibly short. Nice, but short. Nonetheless, it seemed to leave Augusta satisfied. Resting her palm briefly against his right cheek, his date grinned up at him. Murmuring one last farewell, she disappeared off into the night in a flurry of clicking heels.

Contemplating the doorway leading back into the pub, wondering if it was alright for him to have a drink and a moment to himself, a buzzing in Remus’s pocket interrupted his thoughts. Digging out his iPhone, the engineer found himself staring down a work emergency, caused by an overly-anxious stakeholder.

Climbing into a cab, the next fifteen minutes were spent on a long-winded call, assuaging the fears of a paranoid and aptly named Mr. Moody, who was convinced there was a security flaw in the latest update of their mobile app.

“Not being able to remove items from a shopping cart is a _feature_ , not a bug,” Remus assured brightly, pretending he hadn’t argued vehemently against that particular ‘feature’ during the design phase.

“It’s ridiculous,” Moody grunted.

“If our users don’t like it, we can roll back those changes,” Remus promised, grinning out the passenger window of the cab as he pulled onto his street. Take _that_ , Peter from Architecture. “But let’s not be hasty,”

“I can’t see how users will like it Lupin. It’s an asinine _feature_ ,” Moody told him.

Getting out the vehicle, Remus found Hermione approaching their shared front door. Nodding in greeting, he held up a finger to beg pardon for his rudeness.

“The current behaviour was built to make the checkout process needed to be more seamless,” Remus pointed out as his roommate let him into the house. Once indoors, he tried to shrug off his coat, only to end up looking ridiculous by the doorway with half his blazer hanging off one shoulder.

On the other end, Moody said bluntly. “I’ll give it a week before we receive complaints,”

Heaving a theatrical sigh, Hermione tugged the rest of his jacket off, before hanging it up beside her trenchcoat. On auto-pilot, he followed the woman’s steps as she wandered into the kitchen.

“Would you prefer if I roll back those changes tomorrow?” Remus inquired, watching as Hermione picked out two frozen dinners from the refrigerator. Enthusiastically, she rattled the boxes at him.

Making a face at her selection of frozen shepherd’s pie, the man grabbed at the offending items, and shoved them back into the freezer. Ignoring her aggravated posture, he reached down into the crisper and picked out fresh carrots and kale.

“Ugh,” Hermione stomped upstairs. Stifling a laugh, Remus continued his conversation.

By the time his phone call finally ended, half a chicken was roasting in the oven, and carrots and kale were simmering cheerfully on the hob.

“Troubles?” Hermione asked as she stepped back into the kitchen in what he termed pyjamas, but what she labelled ‘atheleisurewear’.

Women.

“Not really,” Remus shrugged absently as he mentally worked out the hours he’d need to make the adjustments Moody wanted. Wiping his hands on his apron, discreetly, he admired the way Hermione’s curls fell against her glowing cheeks.

“I thought you had a date tonight,”

It was only then that Remus remembered belatedly, where he had been returning from.

Shrugging, he said without much enthusiasm, “I’m seeing her again I think,”

“Oh,” Hermione poked at some cutlery. Something froze in her expression. “Shall I go find us a show on Netflix to watch over dinner?”

“Yeah…” he answered with a frown as he watched her. “Did you have a bad day at work?”

“No,” she said shortly. Spinning abruptly on her heel, she exited the kitchen.

Turning back to a pan full of wilting kale, Remus remained unconvinced.

Following her mother’s visit, his roommate had retreated into a cloud of dismal silence. It was a painfully familiar sort of silence, of the type Hermione had worn like an armour when first she had left her marital home. Picking up a spatula, Remus stirred at the simmering greens and tried to convince himself that Hermione’s morose disposition was only to be expected.

It was one thing for her to have walked away from her parents all those years ago in the face of their overbearing disapproval. For her mother not to make any real effort to bridge that gap during that intervening period, only to show up now, to basically say ‘I told you so’…that had to sting.

In Emma’s defence however, at least she had made an effort. Robert Granger himself, had yet to make any overtures of his own. Cycling tour through the continent notwithstanding, now that the ugly truth was out in the open, her father’s presence was still a large, glaring ‘null’. Surely, they had _phones_ in Eastern Europe, which was where Robert was apparently spending most his time these days...

To his shame, Remus was forced to contend with the fact that the entirety of his disappointment was not for Hermione’s sake alone. Even now, he still found himself thinking on Saturday night, and how their evening had felt very much like the best date he had ever been on in his entire life…and how most of that magic had evaporated into not much more than a strained silence, over the span of forty-eight hours.

From the living room, Hermione yelled, “There’s a re-run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer playing. Not the television show, the film,”

“I respectfully decline,” he called as he tugged the chicken from the oven.

“But you _like_ Joss Whedon,” she wheedled in a manner Remus found horrifyingly adorable.

Plating up their food, the man tried to understand what happened to all his misgivings where Hermione was concerned. What happened to being worried about the age difference between them? And certainly, how appropriate was it exactly, that he was on the cusp of courting a woman under the very same roof he had once shared with his departed wife?

Memories of Tonks caused Remus’s stomach to ache ever so slightly as they always did. Though increasingly, those thoughts were accompanied by the reality of Sirius’s unconditional absolution…

“I thought you _liked_ Joss Whedon,” Hermione insisted as she materialized in the kitchen, looking vaguely mutinous as she tried to press her point.

Perhaps his best friend was right at the end of it, Remus thought as he added a generous helping of carrots to the woman’s plate. Perhaps three years of penance was more than enough for a crime he wasn’t necessarily the sole culprit of.

“I like that one show he did,” Remus sniffed haughtily as he shoved his roommate her dinner. “ _Firefly_ was the only good thing he ever made,”

“You’re not serious,” she scoffed as they wandered back out to the living room together. On his television screen, as Remus feared, Kristy Swanson was jumping around in violently pink tights. “ _Firefly_ was the worst show he ever got cancelled. And I’m including _Dollhouse_ in that statement,”

“I’m not even upset at what you’re saying, I’m just disappointed,” Remus grumbled as he settled into his spot.

To his left, Hermione cast him a scathing look as she chewed on a mouthful of chicken.

“Firefly was a ridiculous show with a stupid premise,”

“You’ve lost your mind,” he sounded sincerely aghast now. Setting down his fork, he cast her a disbelieving glare. “It’s got all the elements of a _classic_. There’s a ship captain with a tragic past. The heroine has the ability to kill people with her brain. There’s a totalitarian government looking to control everyone’s lives…”

“There’s a space hooker,” This wasn’t the first time the both of them were having the same argument. “The main characters all sound like they’re from rural America, which makes _zero_ sense in a dystopian future. The “Mandarin” they speak sounds fucking terrible…”

“Now you’re just nitpicking,” he complained, flicking his fingers at her bare arm in retaliation.

In answer, Hermione pummelled playfully at his shoulder.

“Fine, We’ll watch this mess,” he sighed in resignation.

“You’re the best friend a woman could ever ask for,” Hermione grinned adoringly at him.

The moment stretched between them, and her smile faltered, only to be replaced by an emotion he could scarce understand…or at least, he told himself it _couldn’t_ be what it thought it was.

Nonetheless, gazing into the woman’s expressive, dark eyes, Remus started finding it incredibly hard to breathe. Opening his mouth, he found words rushing uncontrollably from his brain.

“Hermione, I…that is…fucking shit _whatinthefucknow_ …” All he inadvertently meant to say was cut off by a the insistent buzzing of his mobile phone. Casting his roommate a desperate smile, Remus implored, “Give me a moment. _Please_ ,”

By the time he was finished with his second phone call of the might with Alastor Moody, dinner was long over, and Hermione was snoring softly on the arm of his sofa…and he had no idea whatsoever, if he had imagined that spark of _something_ he thought he had seen in her eyes.

Sighing, Remus reached for the fuzzy blanket he kept on the sofa. Spreading it over the slightly drooling woman, he resisted the urge to touch her face. Forcefully, he reminded himself that he had a second date with Augusta all lined up, and Hermione was due to go out with the bloody moron from Waitrose _again_.

Picking up their emptied plates, Remus left his roommate alone.

***  
**Tuesday...**

**Remus**

After a gruelling day spent fixing bad code, Remus stumbled towards his bed around midnight, and fell onto his mattress with his clothes on.

As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered if Hermione wouldn’t mind pushing off her date with Oliver, in favour of running off with him to their own deserted island, far away from annoying software developers…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter after this posted immediately!


	16. Eight Days A Week: Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter posted immediately before this!  
> Warning-ish: a lot of Snape/Hermione in this chapter

**Wednesday (break my heart)**

**Hermione**

Had anybody told Hermione on Monday, that by Wednesday night, she would be sharing a drink with a positively _pleasant_ Severus Snape, she would have laughed that person right out of bloody England.

***

Wednesday morning brought fire and brimstone. By the time Hermione strode into the office, she had already responded to about a hundred different emails and voice messages.

“Granger,” Severus barked from his dark, foreboding corner. “Why is St. Mark’s telling me that all their data has been scrubbed from their PROD database?”

“Because Severus, all their data _has_ been scrubbed in PROD,” Hermione answered without looking up from her phone as she sat down at her desk. “And so is the data for Peace Shelter and St. Mary’s,”

“How the _fuck_ did this happen?” her manager asked incredulously. “Hold on a minute, today is cutover for St. Mark’s isn’t it? They’re going live today - or at least, they were supposed to,”

“Yes,” Hermione intoned half-distractedly as she logged into her laptop. “The Development team is aware of the situation…”

“That’s wonderful that they’re _aware_ ,” Severus hissed scathingly as he unfolded his tall, skeletal frame from behind his desk. “What are they - more precisely, what are _you_ \- doing about it? Have the clients been made aware of what’s being done?”

“Severus,” Hermione put her phone down and met his furious gaze. Calmly, she reached for her latte. “I assure you, I’m doing absolutely everything humanly possible to fix this problem. Once I’m finished fixing the problem, we can have a discussion about all the ways this situation could have been prevented, but right now, _please_ let me do my job in peace. If you won’t, I _will_ walk out that door, and you can put these fires out all on your own,”

The man stared at her in stunned silence. Satisfied, Hermione turned her full attention towards resolving every last emergency currently sitting on her metaphorical lap.

All day long, she sprinted between conversations, meetings and phone calls, pulling together statuses from several different teams. When she wasn’t attempting to make sense of the disaster which no one, absolutely no one had foreseen, Hermione spent her time pleading for patience from her irate clients.

By the time five o’clock rolled around, Hermione knew she wasn’t going to make it to her date with Oliver; not that she really cared to. Following her mother’s visit over the weekend, and considering the gruelling day she was still enduring, Hermione didn’t think she had anything left in her to interact with a man whose sole purpose in life appeared to be maintaining his sculpted physique.

With a short, politely worded text message, Hermione turned down all possibility of seeing Oliver ever again.

At seven in the evening, the woman slumped back in her swivel chair and stared blankly at her computer screen. The emergency was finally over. Though her clients were still grumpy, they were no longer demanding her head on a pike. Really, it was about as much as she could have hoped for.

“You look knackered,” Severus remarked as he sauntered over to her desk. He appeared exhausted himself, which wasn’t all that surprising. All day, their clients had wanted his head on a platter right alongside her own. “You also look like you could use a drink, and as it happens, so can I. Would you like to go grab one?”

Squinting up at him, Hermione wondered if this was some sort of joke. Was her manager - the one who routinely set young interns running for their lives - actually behaving like a regular human person?

Was this an elaborate _trap_ of some sort?

“Come on,” Severus prodded. “I promise, there will be no sarcasm for at least an hour,”

“Should you be making those types of promises?” Hermione inquired.

“Probably not,” he shrugged.

There was no reason to say ‘no’, she realized.

“Alright, but you’re buying,” the woman logged out of her laptop.

“That was always the plan,” he chuckled, and followed her.

***

Which was how Hermione found herself clutching at a Manhattan in the lobby bar of the Mondrian Hotel, laughing herself silly over something Severus Snape had just told her.

***

“You’re serious,” Hermione blurted out the moment she got past her slightly hysterical giggling fit. “You’re resigning, and you’ve put _me_ up as your replacement?”

“I can’t tell which part of this pleases you more,” Severus took a sip of his Martini. The two of them were seated at the bar, away from the crowded lounge. “The fact that I will no longer be haunting the hallways of _Patronus Tech_ , or your imminent promotion. In all honesty, I think this promotion is long overdue as it is,”

“I’m not even thirty,” Hermione pointed out. “This is my first job out of uni,”

“What’s your point?” he asked almost challengingly. “You work twice as hard as almost anyone in this office. Your work has - with certain exceptions in recent history - been mostly faultless. The clients love working with you, half the Dev team is deathly afraid of you…”

“That’s really…generous of you,” Hermione gawped at Severus. She almost wanted to ask if it hurt, having to say nice things about someone. But was that a wise thing to say to one’s manager? Only…he wasn’t going to be her manager for much longer was he?

“Most people your age can barely understand what it means to show up to work on time. You’re the exception, not the rule. Creevey is two years younger than you, but I wager it’ll be another five years before anyone will even _think_ about promoting him to a Senior role…not with you around anyway,”

Parsing through all she had just been told, questions crowded Hermione’s mind.

“Is this really going to happen then? I’m really going to be bumped to a Management role? Why didn’t you tell anyone you were leaving? And what about the transitioning of all your duties?”

“Slow down Granger,” he laughed. “I’ve been transitioning all my tasks to McGonagall. She’s still working out the details of your new role. If you _must_ know, we didn’t bother telling the rest of the team because we didn’t think anyone would be too grieved to see me gone,”

“That’s not true! People like you, they’re just intimi…” Hermione started, only to be silenced by the knowing expression resting upon his brow.

“As to your promotion…well…you were supposed to have been told tomorrow. Given the hellish day we’ve just had however, I thought some good news might cheer you up. Also, you _did_ threaten to resign this morning…” Severus looked vaguely uncomfortable. “I figured I’d give you an incentive to stay. You really are the best we’ve ever hired, you know that don’t you? Cedric was over the moon about the quality of your work when he was still here,”

“Does it hurt? To say nice things?” Hermione finished her Manhattan.

“Now that you mention it, I think I might be feeling a twinge of sorts, in the depths of my cold, empty soul,” he answered with a rakish grin.

Before she could respond with a quip of her own, Hermione’s phone buzzed. Looking down, she found herself skimming a plaintive text from Oliver, asking her if she wouldn’t reconsider a second date.

“Troubles?” Severus inquired almost casually as he set down his Martini glass.

“No…not really,” Hermione deleted the whiny message. “I had to cancel on a date tonight because of…well…that massive firestorm we just put out,”

“I see,” he nodded. “I hope you don’t mind my asking but…is this your first attempt at dating after your…um…”

“ _Separation_ ,” Hermione supplied helpfully. “I’m not exactly sure why everyone’s been tiptoeing around this topic. I’m not exactly dying from a terminal disease, I’m just getting a divorce,”

“Sensitivity Granger,” Severus snorted. “It’s a thing some of us possess,”

“That’s rich coming from _you_ of all people,” Hermione snorted. Then, widening her eyes, she clapped a hand over her mouth.

Severus stared hard at her for a moment, before he burst out laughing in what appeared to be genuine amusement. Downing the last of his Martini, he signalled for another round of drinks to be brought over.

“You probably think you’re the epitome of tact and courtesy, don’t you?” he asked, turning his attention back to Hermione.

Fixing her gaze on him, the young woman noted with surprised interest that Severus was actually quite…attractive.

Jet black hair with undercut sides complemented strikingly dark eyes. Perfectly sculpted cheekbones and full lips which might have lent another man the appearance of a dandy, only served to give this one an air of debonair roguishness.

Where Remus’s good looks were largely attributed to the open honesty of his laughing grey eyes, alongside his beautiful smile, Severus’s charms were wrapped up in his dark, enigmatic gaze, and the almost-contemptuous twist of his lips…

“I most certainly do not,” Hermione replied, mentally berating herself for comparing every man in her life to Remus-Bloody-Lupin.

Their drinks arrived. Picking up his second Martini, Severus tilted his glass in her direction, before he took a small sip. Toying with the stem of his glass, he smiled crookedly, “In the office, every time we speak with each other, everything we have to say is coated in layers of courtesy and professionalism. I’ve always wanted to hear you tell me something real,”

 _Severus Snape was flirting with her_ , Hermione recognized at last.

“ _You_ seem to have no problem being yourself,” she pointed out as she crossed her legs demurely. Carefully, she shifted herself so that her body faced her soon-to-be ‘ex’ manager. “You sent Astoria running for the toilet just yesterday. The poor girl was crying her eyes out,”

“The girl owns an MBA from one of the most expensive schools in the country,” Severus parried. “You would think she might be capable of something as basic as grammar,”

“Fair enough,” Hermione grimaced sympathetically, forgetting for a moment that she was attempting to play the role of temptress.

“Enough diversion,” Severus’s leaned closer. “So you’re getting back into the dating scene…it’s a bit soon, no?”

“I’m not in the market for a second husband if that’s what you’re asking,” she toyed with the cocktail pick in her Manhattan. There was a maraschino cherry pierced upon its sharp tip, and she had always loved those scarlet, sweet things.

“What are you in the market for then?” his voice dropped an octave. Unconsciously, he reached up and tugged at the knot of his skinny black tie.

Carefully, Hermione picked the cherry out of her drink, and bit into it. Her eyes fluttered as she relished its boozy sweetness.

“I don’t know,” she observed the way Severus’s dark eyes traced her every last gesture. “Why are you so curious about my love life all of a sudden,”

“I’m asking,” his voice was a husky thing now. “Because frankly, I’ve spent the past year wondering if there were any decent way to proposition a certain married woman without getting myself slapped. She’s got a brilliant mouth you see, and curls I constantly want to run my fingers through, to see if they’re as untameable as they look. Unfortunately, this woman also happens to be my employee…”

“I’m not sure I’m able to help you,” Hermione dropped the metal cocktail pick back into her half-drunk glass. She took a long, slow sip of her Manhattan. “The only co-worker I’m interested in fraternizing with is about to leave the company, and I don’t believe he’s married,”

Laughing softly, Severus reached out and plucked her glass from her fingers. Rising to his feet, he closed the distance between the two of them. His right hand floated under her chin for a split second, before he made full contact.

“You have no idea the sorts of thoughts I’ve been having, since the day I clapped eyes on you. Every time you opened your mouth to ask me a question, or to say something clever, all I wanted to do was to kiss you until you forgot what words even _meant_ ,”

“This place is a little on the public side, but I’m sure we can arrange…” Hermione started.

Before she could finish her sentence, Severus pressed his mouth against her own.

The man tasted like gin and vermouth, and something far headier than all the liquor in the world. All around her, the noise of the bar faded away into nothing more than white noise.

“Brilliant…” she breathed when he pulled away.

“So are you,” he carded his fingers through her hair. “My place is around the corner,”

“Is that why you brought me here?” she was practically purring in her anticipation. “Easy access?”

“No Granger, I brought you here to inform you of your promotion,” he sounded suddenly and uncharacteristically hesitant. “Which by the way, is not conditional on whether or not we decide to…”

Understanding he was about to ruin the fog he had placed her in, Hermione hopped to her feet and cupped his cheeks in her hands. “Your place it is,”

***

Backing her into the confines of his swanky little flat, Severus made short work of unbuttoning her blouse. Shoving her skirt up, he pushed aside her underwear and stroked skillfully at her eager quim, before sliding two fingers inside of her.

“Oh,” Hermione uttered as he guided her onto his sofa with practised ease. Clumsily, she reached for his belt and unfastened his trousers.

Looking her in the eye, Severus brushed the pad of his thumb against her clit. Pushing upwards ever so slightly, he caused her mind to implode.

“Fuck…oh god…” Hermione shuddered as she came.

“You look fucking delicious,” he breathed in answer. Reaching for his wallet, he fumbled for a little foil packet.

As he rolled a condom over his decidedly stiff cock, Hermione couldn’t help but think that his appendage was certainly an improvement from the last one she had seen in person. Pushing aside all reminders of Cormac, the woman tugged roughly at Severus’s starched shirt, and pulled him down into a deep kiss. Shamelessly, she parted her thighs to him.

With a sigh, Severus slid deep inside her. Lifting her hips, Hermione met his eager thrusts as she gripped tightly at his still clothed thighs. As her next orgasm began to crest, the woman turned her face into a sofa cushion, and loosed a small scream.

Almost immediately after, Severus shouted his own completion, before collapsing beside her, spent and boneless in his exhaustion.

“That was…” Hermione grinned through her gasps. “That…”

“Careful. My ego,” laughter rumbled in Severus’s chest as he reached up to stroke affectionately at her cheek.

“It was marvellous,” she kissed him on his forehead. “Better, actually. You were fucking amazing,”

Taking a deep breath, she hoisted herself to sitting. Moving at a slower speed, Severus too, righted himself. Discreetly, he rid himself of his soiled condom.

Hermione buttoned her shirt up, and smoothed her hands over the stiff grey material of her pencil skirt. Rising to her feet, she fussed fruitlessly at her mussed hair.

Moving towards her, Severus reached out and spanned her waist carefully with his wide, elegant hands. Brushing his lips against her left ear, he murmured, “It’s only ten-thirty, and I _know_ you don’t have anything too pressing in the morning. Why don’t we have another drink? You can spend the night even…”

“I…” Hermione racked her brain and came up short. Deciding honesty was probably the best policy, she smiled ruefully up at him, and said, “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,”

The man said nothing, though he didn’t relinquish his hold on her.

“You don’t have to worry yourself over what just happened. I meant it when I told you I’m really not looking for anything serious,” Hermione continued as she pulled away from him.

“Right….right,” Severus flexed his jaw.

“What we just did… a repeat attempt might be… _preferable_. Personally, I feel my performance tonight was a bit on the lacking side of things,”

“Severus, that was the best sex I’ve had in years, and I’m _not_ just saying that,” Hermione said assuringly - albeit distractedly - as she searched for her discarded bag.

“Right,” he sounded a tad constipated. “Hermione, I think I might have given you the wrong idea…”

Pausing mid-step, the woman peered quizzically over at Severus, who snapped his mouth shut with a distinct click. There was a look of dread in his eyes which caused her stomach to constrict unpleasantly.

“What do you mean?” she frowned.

“Nothing,” the man shook his head. “Nothing at all. Are you sure you won’t stay for a drink?”

“I really need to get going before my roommate Remus sends out a search party,” she explained truthfully and apologetically. “He’s a bit on the over-protective side of things,”

“Is he?” her companion’s dark eyes narrowed as his back straightened.

Good sex aside, Hermione reminded herself that this was still _Severus_ she was conversing with. Grumpy, ever-so-slightly insane Severus. Allowing herself to relax, she slipped on her haphazardly discarded heels. Brushing her tangled hair away from her eyes, she cast the man a small smile. Politely, she said, “Have a good night Severus,”

Before she could turn towards the front door she had tumbled through less than thirty minutes prior, Severus was on her once again. Slanting his mouth firmly against her own, he kissed her with what felt like iron determination.

“Good night Granger,” he whispered against her skin. There was a familiar smirk in his voice. “See you in the morning,”

Rolling her eyes, the young woman laughed in amusement as she let herself out.

***  
It was past eleven by the time she reached home. Stepping into the shadowy townhouse, Hermione was surprised to see light streaming from the kitchen.

Remus should have been in bed by now. Not only that - he was also _militant_ about never leaving the light on.

Locking the door behind her, Hermione called out, “Hello?”

“Hi,” Remus answered. His footsteps were loud as he approached her.

The man stopped a few feet away from where she was still standing. In one hand, he grasped a glass of whiskey. In the other, he held a still-burning cigarette. Frowning in alarm, Hermione dropped her things and hurried towards her roommate.

“Did something happen?” she demanded as she snatched the cigarette from Remus. “Stop smoking, these things will kill you,”

The last time he had smoked, had been immediately after Tonks’ passing.

“Always so bossy,” he muttered as he trailed after her, back into the kitchen. “I’m fine. I just had a rough…day…or night, or whatever. I had to deal with loads of deadlines, angry stakeholders…you know how it is. Did you have a good time with Oliver?”

“Actually, I cancelled on him,” Hermione extinguished the cigarette and threw the reeking thing away.

“Oh?” Remus sounded surprised.

“Yeah, my day was hell too, but um…” now that she knew nothing was _really_ the matter with Remus, Hermione found her good mood returning to her. “I did something,”

“Should I ask?” the man’s voice seemed oddly strained. 

“Well, more accurately, I did _someone_ ,” Hermione found herself giggling like a schoolgirl. “You remember my manager Severus…we went for a drink after work, and he told me he was leaving the company. This week’s his last week…long story short, I didn’t go on a date with Oliver, but Severus and I…we went back to his place, and…”

“I get the idea,” Remus interrupted. Gracelessly, he stumbled backwards and fell into a dining chair. “The lurid details are unnecessary,”

 _Men_ , Hermione thought derisively as she turned to rinse her hands clean under the kitchen faucet. It wasn’t as if the boys and Sirius didn’t all enjoy sharing the occasional crude story of their own.

“Wait a minute,” Remus cleared his throat. “Isn’t Severus more than a _little_ bit older than you?”

Wrangling some math in her head, Hermione screwed her face up in vague contemplation. After a moment, she shrugged and said, “I suppose. But I’m not sure how that matters,”

Stretching her arms above her head, she yawned loudly and contentedly, before she remembered something else. Something far more important than the one-night-stand she had just enjoyed.

“Forget Severus though. Apparently, I’m getting a promotion!” she exclaimed excitedly as she hopped onto a nearby counter stool.

“That’s…that’s wonderful!” her roommate seemed to be having trouble smiling. Insincerely, he added, “I’m so glad. Congratulations,”

“We should get everyone together for a drink tomorrow night,”

“I have a date tomorrow night,” Remus poured himself more whiskey from an open bottle of Writer’s Tears. “I suppose I could bring Augusta, though I suppose that would be a bit weird, considering we’ve only been out once,”

Hermione tasted something sour at the back of her throat, as she tried to imagine having to witness Remus canoodling with a strange woman he had only just met.

“Or we could organize something for the weekend,” she said quickly. “What do you think about a party on Saturday night? It’s a long weekend, so we have plenty of time to recover from a hangover,”

“Won’t you want to see _Severus_ again?” her roommate asked sullenly, refusing to look her in the eye.

“No,” Hermione was starting to feel quite annoyed. “It was a one night stand. I have no intention of exploring a relationship with him right at this moment,”

Remus’s grey eyes shot up to meet her own. “Is it because he’s too old?”

Pushing herself off her seat, Hermione tossed her hair back. Very curtly, she bit out, “Have a good night Remus,”

“No wait,” Remus lurched upright. “I’m sorry. I’m acting like a bloody lunatic. I just…it was a really, _really_ bad day. I want to hear all about your promotion, and yes, absolutely, let’s host a party. God knows we’re long overdue. Though if you’re amenable to it, I’d like to start tossing people out on the street by midnight,”

Stilling her movements, she considered his explanation.

“Fine,” her roommate took a large gulp of whiskey. “Twelve-thirty,”

Deciding she could forgive him, Hermione stomped around the kitchen and found herself a clean tumbler. Settling herself into the rickety dining chair across from Remus’s own, she poured herself a very generous serving of Irish whiskey.

“Change that cut off-time to eleven-thirty, and we’ll have ourselves an accord,” she raised her glass.

Collapsing back into his seat, Remus nodded, and pasted on a smile.

“To your success,” he pronounced.

“To me,” she nodded enthusiastically. “Because frankly, it’s about time something started going right in my life,”

Before her eyes, Remus’s false grin melted into something soft and sincere. Tapping his glass against her own, he murmured,

“To you indeed,”

Inhaling sharply, Hermione wondered how her companion couldn’t hear the pounding of her lovelorn heart, in the empty hollow of her chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mixing song references and eras!  
> Also to be clear - just because Snape is trying to be nice so he can ask Hermione out, and just because he’s not a sexist boss, doesn’t make him not a jerk...his comments about Colin Creevey and younger employees is just a thing I’ve heard senior managers say about younger employees...frankly, he's kinda a nightmare boss...


	17. Eight Days A Week: Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally happened! I posted an updated chapter to the wrong fic! I was totally waiting for that to happen.
> 
> Sorry to confuse anyone who also subscribed to my other epic fic "Slow Dance..." and who might have received an update notification...

**Thursday (Make Sure You Are Thirsty)**

**Remus**

Augusta was a lovely woman. There was nothing about her Remus found unpleasant or wanting, or at least that was the impression he received over the course of their second date.

Granted, he had spent their time together only half listening to to what she was saying, wrapped up as he was, thinking about what his roommate had told him about _her_ Wednesday night…

As much as he didn’t mean to do such a thing, Remus spent most of his date with Augusta obsessing over the fact that Hermione had actually gone home with her arsehole of her boss. Based on a detailed mental compilation of his roommate’s complaints, the engineer had existed in the understanding that

(a) the genetic makeup of Severus Snape was comprised almost entirely of a bag of dicks and  
(b) he was a man Remus’s own age.

Point (b) was where his similarities with Severus ended.

Unlike Remus, it was obvious the other man did not possess so much as an ounce of shame, considering he had _zero_ problem going after a far younger _employee_. Worse, the prat had wasted no time at all, in taking said-woman to bed.

Which lead Remus to two unsettling conclusions - either Severus was as feckless as Sirius when it came to his lovers…

…or he had spotted _exactly_ what a catch Hermione was, and his successful attempt at seduction was simply the beginnings of a serious courtship.

Considering the pillock had waited until the woman had extricated herself from her marriage before he made his dastardly move, Remus was willing to wager his entire collection of Depeche Mode records (original, not re-released) on the notion that Severus was making a concerted bid for his roommate’s affections.

If Severus had only been interested in getting into Hermione’s knickers, the man would have made a move ages ago.

The only cheerful aspect of the whole matter, Remus mused gloomily, was _Hermione’s_ earnest declaration that the whole unfortunate episode had been nothing more than a one night stand as far as she was concerned. That, and Sirius’s confident assertion that rebound romances were not only expected but necessary.

“If you went after her now, you’ll be kicked to the curb in two minutes,” his best friend had warned - again - over lunch. “Be patient. Even if it’s not a one night stand, this _Snivellus_ fellow won’t last. Trust me on this,”

“But…” Remus had started anxiously, ignoring his best friend’s not-so-creative spin on Severus’s first name.

“Patience,” Sirius’s repeated forcefully. Spearing a forkful of red meat, he waved it in the air and commanded, “Tell me about the woman you’re seeing tonight,”

Despite all the logical logic he had been presented with, walking Augusta back towards her flat, Remus couldn’t shake the miserable feeling that perhaps he had already fucked up all of his chances…

…which in hindsight, there had been so many.

“You’re such a wonderful listener,” Augusta gushed as they stopped at the entrance to her building.

“Hazards of the job,” he quipped. Focusing his full attention upon his date, Remus shuffled restlessly. “I can’t turn out a good product if I don’t know how to pick out what’s important,”

Even in a shapeless knee-length coat, a scarf and a pair of thick gloves, Augusta Sinistra might objectively be one of the most beautiful women Remus had ever laid eyes upon in his entire life.

“When did you want to see that screening of _2001_?” she asked as she took an experimental step into his personal space. “The one you said was screening at that theatre near your house,”

Gazing into her lovely eyes, Remus recalled vaguely that earlier in the evening, they had discussed once again, their shared love of certain Kubrick films.

“I think that screening ends next Tuesday…or something,” Remus swallowed.

“Why not dinner and a movie on Saturday night?” she reached tentatively for his hand.

“Saturday’s out I’m afraid,” he explained. “My roommate and I are having a party. She’s just received a promotion at work,”

“ _She_?” his date dropped his hand like it was a red hot poker. “You live with a _woman_?”

“Yes. But it’s not like _that_ ,” he said hurriedly as her flirtatious expression melted away into open distress.

Augusta looked crestfallen as she made to turn away. “Oh Jesus Christ…not again. Why is it _always_ the married ones?”

“Wait, hold on, you don’t understand, I’m not married, not anymore, anyway,” he explained quickly.

“You _were_ married?” Augusta wore an expression of deep skepticism. “Why didn’t you mention this in your dating profile? What would you hide such a thing?”

“Because, Augusta, I didn’t see how it was anyone’s business at all, that I’m a bloody _widower_ ,” his words spilled out a little more sharply than he had intended. “I reckoned that was one of those things I had a right to keep to myself until I was ready to talk about it,”

Taking in the horrified expression upon Augusta’s beautiful face, Remus wondered if perhaps he didn’t deserve to be alone for the rest of his life after all.

“I’m sorry, that was…horribly rude of me. I’ll just be leaving now…” he said miserably, and made to walk away.

Before he could get very far, Remus felt a staying hand clasping gently at his elbow. Surprised, he paused mid-step.

“Please, I’m the one who should be apologize. _My_ reaction was ridiculous to say the least. The problem is, I’ve had some bad experiences with men I’ve met on Tinder,” Augusta said quietly. “How about we start this farewell again, and you can tell me all about your roommate’s promotion?”

Remus shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I don’t know if…”

“One more chance,” Augusta blurted out. “I promise I’m not _actually_ a lunatic. Well, I’m not a _complete_ lunatic anyway,”

Somehow, Remus found himself grinning at her admission.

“I suppose we could try one more date,”

“How about Monday? I’ll even buy my own ticket, I promise,” she sounded relieved.

“Oh come on…I’m not a total arsehole,” Remus’s grin grew wider. “Monday afternoon works…you could meet me at my place, assuming it’s still standing after Saturday night’s festivities…”

Full, red lips curved into a slow, sultry smile. Under his pale blue shirt, Remus broke out in a cold sweat.

“I’ll meet you at noon,” she agreed.

“Here’s…” he stammered only a little as he drew out his phone and shared his address with his date. “Here’s where I live,”

Perhaps there was hope for him yet, Remus thought, as Augusta tiptoed upwards and pressed her lips against his own. Without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her tiny waist and rested his hands on the small of her back.

As he surrendered himself to the moment, Augusta murmured a very soft hum of contentment; the sound made him think of sweat slicked skin, sliding sensuously under the light of a full moon.

“That was…” she looked a little dazed when at last he ended their lingering kiss. “Remind me, when do I get to kiss you again?”

“Monday,” he rasped.

“Or…maybe you could come upstairs with me right now, for say, tea and biscuits?” she offered with a hopeful smile.

“That sounds wonderful…but I’m not sure I’m ready for _biscuits_ just yet,” he confessed.

While he wasn’t exactly falling in love with the woman in his arms, if what they had just shared was anything to go by, perhaps there was a chance Augusta and he could embark on something real yet. Something tangible, and true.

After all, the whole point of resurrecting his dating profile from the dead, was to get over his feelings for Hermione, and to move on with his life...

Until he knew for sure that he had actual feelings for Augusta however, he absolutely refused to risk the chance that he might end up inadvertently hurting the woman, who clearly had some baggage of her own. If he had learned any lessons in this life, it was that nothing good ever came out of using people for his own selfish ends.

“Good night,” he murmured.

Brushing his hand against her own, he planted a kiss upon Augusta’s smooth forehead. Turning his collar up against the rising wind, Remus started for home.

***  
**Hermione**

Four years ago, when she had first graduated from uni, Hermione would probably have walked back into the office on Thursday morning on tenterhooks. She would have tiptoed through the door, awkward and self-conscious over the fact that she had gone and shagged her boss.

(True, the boss in question would be gone by the end of Friday, but until then, he was still very much her manager.)

The current iteration of Hermione strode into work, feeling content and happy in the way only the very freshly-laid could feel. Passing Severus’s desk, he was the first to acknowledge the changes in their dynamic, by offering her a rakishly suggestive grin as she passed. Indeed, she was intensely aware of the _way_ his eyes lingered on her person, long after she swept imperiously past him.

Around eleven in the morning, she received a meeting invite requesting her presence in the “Rivia” meeting room at three.

There was a split-second during which Hermione wondered if this wasn’t the meeting she thought it was. Perhaps she wasn’t being promoted; indeed, perhaps she was being _sacked_ for having slept with her boss.

Taking a deep breath, with her head held high, Hermione marched into the room at exactly three in the afternoon and awaited her fate.

Exiting the meeting room fifteen minutes later, the woman made a beeline for the lady’s room. Shutting the door of her cubicle, she pumped her fist joyfully in the air, before sending out a mass invitation to everyone in her Facebook friend group, for a celebratory party on Saturday night.

Scrolling through her list of contacts from work, she extended an invite to Luna and Colin, both of whom responded immediately. For all of a moment, her forefinger hovered over Severus’s name…

Without sending him a message, she tucked her phone away.

***

At around five o’clock in the afternoon, she received a Slack message from Severus, which read very simply, “‘Grats.”

Without missing a beat, she replied, “You mean ‘congratulations’. Don’t you have a Master’s degree?”

Smirking at him from across the room with her hands behind her head, she was gratified to see him laughing aloud.

“Celebratory drink?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Is that such a good idea?” she typed back after a few more.

“I promise, no funny business,”

Peeking over at him, she met his piercing gaze and hesitated.

***

“Is this alright?” Severus murmured, lifting his lips from her own.

They were standing outside a pub called _The Lion and The Wolf_ , and he had one arm wrapped tightly around her waist. With his free hand, Severus cradled her jaw; softly, he stroked a thumb across her cheek.

Smiling up at him, Hermione said, “Only if you’re planning on taking me back to your place,”

“Or - we could go to _your_ place,” he suggested casually as he brushed her curls away from her cheeks.

“I wouldn’t mind meeting your roommate, to see what sort of man this fellow is,”

 _What an odd thing to say_ , Hermione thought as she ran her fingertips over his defined cheekbones. “He’s a wonderful man, Remus. Wonderful and understanding. But I would prefer to give him some warning at least, before I started bringing ‘friends’ home…so to speak, anyway. I mean, he and I, we’ve talked about it before of course. But frankly, the idea still seems strange…you understand don’t you?”

“Not really,” Severus said flatly. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he pulled away from her. “Much as I want to take you home with me - and _believe_ me when I tell you that I do - I think it might not be the best idea right at this very moment. Not yet, anyhow,”

Silently, Hermione wondered if she ought to press her point.

Throwing caution to the wind, she pressed her curves against him and drew him back into another searing kiss.

Laughing against her mouth, he told her softly, “Christ you’re sweet…”

“But…?” she frowned, reading between the lines.

“But…” he kissed her forehead. “I have aspirations…and I refuse to stand in my own way,”

Smirking at her perplexed expression as he extricated himself from her arms, Severus waved cheerily at her as he turned to go. Over his shoulder, he promised, “I’ll text you this weekend. Until then…good night Hermione,”

_Hermione? Whatever happened to ’Granger’?_

All the way home, Hermione found herself trying to work out why her seduction technique had failed. By the time she settled beside Remus to re-watch an episode of Stranger Things, she was still nowhere close to finding a satisfactory answer in her head.

***  
**Friday (I’m In…)**

**Hermione**

The lawyer called before lunch, with the news that her divorce would be done and over with by the end of the calendar year.

That news, she shared with Remus, and Remus alone.

<Wine and tapas> he texted back almost immediately. <Reservations for two at _Patria_ at seven, so don’t be late tonight>

<Bossypants> she wrote back with a happy smile.

Over dinner, Remus raised his glass once to her divorce, and then again to her recent success; the latter, he performed with far more gusto and sincerity than he had on Wednesday night.

“How was your date yesterday night?” Hermione asked casually after two glasses of very fine Rioja. _Too_ casually to her own ears, but her roommate didn’t seem to notice.

Remus’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It went very well. Augusta’s a lovely person. I’m seeing her on Monday afternoon actually,”

“A third date,” she laughed lightly to hide the tremor in her voice. “You know what date that is of course?”

“What?” he eyed her over his own fast-emptying glass.

“It’s the sex date,” she blurted out.

Ungracefully, her roommate set his glass down with a loud clatter and sputtered, “I don’t know about all that,”

Taking in his flushed and embarrassed demeanour, Hermione regretted her bluntness.

“How’s Severus?” Remus asked as picked up his fork. Poking at some Patatas Bravas, he still appeared quite mortified.

“Confusing,” Hermione waved her suddenly very empty wineglass at their approaching waiter. “He won’t have sex with me anymore, but he doesn’t seem _un_ interested,”

“I need something stronger than wine,” Remus told their beleaguered server.

That was the last they spoke of either Augusta or Severus for the rest of the night…

Not that it mattered; by the time dessert came around, that brief blip was long forgotten, and they had moved on to the serious subject of party-planning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, there's a bug with the Kudo engine - the kudo count shot up from 100somthing to 881 in a span of five minutes - like, wtf??. My god this webapp is frightening.


	18. Eight Days A Week: Chapter 4

**Saturday (Night On the Town)**

**Hermione**

“You do realize, the cat’s going to eat those flowers,” Remus warned as he set out bowls of snacks on the coffee table. “Then, she’s going to sick it up everywhere. We’ll be wallowing in puddles of kitty vomit for days,”

Between the two roommates, the party preparations had come along quite nicely throughout the day. Hermione had been in charge of clean-up, while Remus had been in charge of food.

They both added to a shared iTunes playlist, which thankfully, did not contain as much Chvrches as the woman feared. There had been an animated debate about the addition of songs by The National, because according to Remus, “nobody wanted to listen to sad sack music”…but then Hermione had threatened to remove every last Tegan and Sara track he’d shoved in there, and that had been the end of _that_.

“First of all, you ignorant man, roses don’t hurt cats,” Hermione said absently as she tried to position properly, her white flowers on a sideboard by the window. “Second, do you think her real owners miss her? I feel a bit guilty not putting up any posters, to tell the neighbours we’ve found this lovely creature…”

The feline in question blinked calmly up at her humans from the couch.

“Now that you mention it,” Remus mused thoughtfully. Hermione did her best not to notice the manner by which her roommate’s dark blue shirt brought out his eyes. “I’ve been wondering about old Crooks’s real owners. I hesitate to say this but…”

“What?” she asked, casting him an anxious glance.

“I have this horrible suspicion…” Remus wore a solemn expression as he closed the short distance between the two of them. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he squeezed down gently.

“Oh my god, _what_?” Hermione grew frantic. Had Crookshanks been displaying symptoms of depression over being separated from her real owners? Had she, in her supreme selfishness, neglected the cat’s emotional wellbeing?*

Looking as if he were about to give her some horrible news, Remus said, “Hermione, has it occurred to you…that _we_ might now be her real owners?”

Scowling in supreme annoyance, Hermione pummelled lightly at his chest. Laughing, he captured her wrists in his large hands even as he dodged her playful blows.

Their laughter faded away into an easy silence…which then began to thicken like honey all around them. Caught up in the depths of Remus’s gaze and the feel of his persistent touch, Hermione found herself lost for words. Rooted to the spot, the woman breathed in the scent of his aftershave.

“Hermione?” Remus asked. Perhaps it was only her imagination, but his grip on her wrists seemed to tighten ever so slightly.

By the light of the evening sun streaming in through un-shuttered windows, Remus’s hair gleamed like burnished gold. Dreamily, she inclined her chin; her heels lifted from the ground, as she drifted upwards towards his parted lips.

Someone knocked at their door.

“Bollocks,” she swore.

“Pardon?” Remus rasped.

If the muscles in Remus’s forearms flexed in frustration, Hermione was too busy feeling sorry for herself to have noticed. Swallowing away her hopeless, stupid feelings, the woman yanked herself out of her roommate’s grasp, and hurried towards the front door.

***  
**Remus**

If there was one thing Sirius Black had a knack for, it was his ability to be at the wrong place, at the exact wrong time.

Right before the no-good layabout showed up at his front door, Remus had been convinced that he and Hermione had been about to engage in something a little less than platonic.

Actually, make that a _lot_ less than platonic.

In the middle of his living room, facing the woman who haunted his every waking thought, Remus stood close enough to Hermione, he could feel her breath ghosting across his face. Caught up in the crackling intensity of the moment, he held his breath as Hermione gazed dreamily up into his eyes.

Just as he was about to give into temptation, just as he was about to plant one on her, someone began rapping insistently at the front door.

Not that he heard it at first, given his distracted state.

“Bollocks,” she swore.

“Pardon?” he asked in surprise as the moment began to dissipate.

Instead of pressing her body against his own like he prayed she would, Hermione took one step away from him, and then another. For an insane second, Remus wanted to run after her; he wanted to keep the rest of the world out of _their_ home, _their_ sanctuary…

Before he could make his legs move however, Sirius was pouring himself into the foyer with his newest girlfriend, Mandy Something-or-Other.

“Wow,” Mandy Something-or-Other said as she stepped into the parlour. “This place is fucking lit. Holy crap are those fucking _roses_? This is some classy shit,”

Over her head, Sirius mouthed, “ _Twenty-two_ ,”

Breathing deeply, Remus reined in his disappointment with as much self-control as he could manage.

***  
**Hermione**

Halfway through the party, Hermione found herself cornered by a curious Lavender as she attempted to locate the rest of the snacks her roommate had squirrelled away somewhere.

Outside the kitchen, she could hear Luna explaining to a confused Ron, what the significance of birthstones were, and how that aligned with one’s disposition. Elsewhere, Sirius was busy pressuring Colin into downing a short of Liquid Cocaine.

_Perhaps inviting her colleagues to a house party wasn’t exactly the best idea in the world…_

“You never told me how your date went!” Lavender babbled excitedly as she followed Hermione from cupboard to cupboard in the small kitchen.

“I didn’t?” Hermione mused absently. “Pardon me but - _Remus, where the hell did you put the rest of the crisps?_ ”

She yelled the last part, loud enough so that Lavender clapped her hands over her ears. Shrugging apologetically at Ron’s girlfriend, Hermione continued to rummage fruitlessly.

“They’re above the fridge,” Remus called from somewhere in the living room. “Open your eyes woman!”

“Hermione, you and your boyfriend have the _best_ collection of books!” Luna yelled from the living room. “I can’t believe you own the entire series of Hellblazer comics!”

 _Boyfriend_? Hermione mouthed in confusion at an amused Lavender.

“The comic books are Remus’s rubbish!” she hollered back at Luna. Ignoring her co-worker’s incurable lunacy had always worked for her in the past; probably, it would work now.

At her roommate, she bellowed, “Remus, honestly, why did you leave them where I can’t reach!”

Dragging a chair to the fridge, she dropped her voice back to its normal pitch as she resumed her conversation with Lavender, “The date was fine. I mean, he showed up late, and wouldn’t stop talking about his workout routine,”

“So he’s fit then. Literally?” Lavender hopped up to sit on the kitchen counter.

“I never got around to seeing him naked,” Hermione laughed as she climbed her makeshift step-stool. Behind her, more people entered the kitchen.

“You’re going hurt yourself,” Remus admonished as he hurried over. Before she could protest, the man had his hands wrapped firmly around her waist. Despite her loud protests, he had her standing on solid ground in a split-second.

Propping her fists on her hips, Hermione made a face. “I’ll have you know, I am perfectly capable of operating a chair,”

“I have no doubt,” Remus laughed at her as he retrieved several bags of Sour Cream and Onion crisps. “Where do you want these?”

“Out with the rest of the snacks, obviously,” she rolled her eyes and shoved lightly at him.

“Do the two of you bicker like this all the time?” Harry asked in fascination from where he was leaning beside Lavender. “Doesn’t it ever get, I don’t know, tiresome?”

Remus sighed in a long-suffering manner as Hermione spun around to glare at Harry.

“It’s hardly my fault she’s impossible,” her roommate offered.

“I’m improbable, not impossible,” Hermione retorted, though she wasn’t quite sure what that even meant. This resulted in Remus reaching out to ruffle at her curls, before he jogged out into the parlour with new snacks in hand.

The two non-residents of the house exchanged significant glances which Hermione couldn’t decipher. Deciding it wasn’t worth asking what was running through their inebriated minds, she changed the subject.

“Lav, to answer your question, I didn’t see that first guy naked…but I did _accidentally_ go on another date of sorts,” she grinned.

“Really? Who with?” Harry sounded bored as he took a swig of his beer. Outside in the living room, Ginny could be heard boasting about the latest achievements of their children. “Was it Remus?”

“What?” Hermione sputtered. “That’s…that’s ridiculous. Honestly Harry, what the hell? Anyway,…I went home with my boss,”

There was something rather gratifying about the sight of Harry choking on his beverage - that would teach him to be such a smug bastard. To his right, Lavender goggled at her in shock and awe.

“Ok fine, he stopped being my boss after yesterday,” Hermione poured herself more wine. “I wouldn’t have slept with him otherwise,”

“Photos,” Lavender sputtered. “I want to know what he looks like. Is he cute? Is he sexy? Is his…is his _thing_ , you know…”

“I can’t hear this,” Harry stumbled out.

“But _I_ can, so tell me everything. And I mean _everything_ ,” Lavender jumped off the counter.

Observing the menacing manner by which the other woman was stalking towards her, it occurred to Hermione that she might have made a strategic mistake in letting Lavender in on her scandalous update.

“Was the sex good? Did he…”

“What’s going on?” Ron asked as he came into the room. “Harry looks like he’s seen a ghost,”

“Our Hermione shagged her boss!” Lavender clapped her hands in fiendish delight.

“I think one of Remus’s co-workers is trying to get my attention,” Ron said hastily, and backed out of the kitchen. “My _god_ but these engineers can drink,”

To her eternal gratitude, Hermione’s phone chose that moment to start pinging.

“Oh shit,” Hermione said quite shrilly as she whipped her phone out. “It’s work, I have to get this,”

Literally fleeing a frustrated Lavender, Hermione dashed into the back garden and shut the door behind her. The moment she turned to face the empty space filled with dying herbs and shrubs, she regretted not thinking through her method of escape.

Standing outside the house in the dark and the cold, without so much as a cardigan to protect herself from the autumn chill, Hermione shivered. Wrapping a trembling arm around herself, she peered down at the screen of her phone.

<What are you doing?>

Arching her brows, Hermione slowly tapped out an answer to Severus with her one, free hand.

<Is this what the kids call a ‘sext’?>

<You can’t be serious.> he wrote back. <‘Sext’? Really? Are you secretly old?>

Laughing aloud, Hermione huddled into a corner and replied, <What can I do for you Sev?>

<Frankly, I hope you weren’t planning on calling me that ever again.>  
<They haven’t yet found the remains of the last person who made that mistake.>  
<I’m mostly joking. Mostly. Anyway…what are you up to?>

Reading his messages, Hermione found her lips twisting upwards. <I’m hosting a party. Why?>

Severus wrote, <I was thinking about spending more quality time with you…what are you up to tomorrow?>

Biting her lip, she typed, <Getting over a hangover probably>

She didn’t have to wait long for his response. <Alright, what are you doing Monday night then?>

Thinking fast, Hermione said, <You>

Raucous laughter emanated from the depths of the house. From the sounds of it, Ron had already gotten himself well and truly sloshed.

<Meet me outside my place at 6:30 - there’s a great restaurant I’ve been meaning to try…>  
<In the meantime, do try to take it easy on the liver…;)>

Hermione had a distinct feeling that she and Severus were having two very different conversations at the exact same time.

Stashing her phone into her back pocket, she observed warily as the kitchen door opened into the freezing back garden. A sliver of light shining out from the interior of the house revealed a slightly annoyed and rather tipsy Remus strolling towards her, with her red cardigan in his right hand.

“You left me alone with all those beasts,” he complained. “They’re destroying my liquor cabinet as we speak,"

Sighing in relief, Hermione slid her arms into the proffered sweater being held out to her. Gratefully, she smiled up at Remus, who didn’t seem in a rush to return to the ongoing festivities.

“Lavender said work was calling,” he said softly as he raised a hand to brush a stray curl from her cheek.

“In a manner of speaking,” she replied as nonchalantly as she could. “My old boss texted,”

“I see,” her roommate said.

Then, he took a step away from her. “This thing with Severus. This isn’t a fling, is it?”

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “I’m just trying to have a bit of fun after…”

“After that nasty business with McLaggen,” Remus finished, smiling ruefully down at her.

Sighing, Hermione began fiddling with her braided hair. “I’m not good at this dating business, but I believe I was extremely clear to Severus that I’m not looking to start anything serious. Not right now anyway, and certainly not with him. The fact that he wants to get _dinner_ \- that’s weird isn’t it?”

Remus tilted his gaze up to the sky. Crossing his arms, her roommate’s smile turned wistful.

Suddenly, it occurred to Hermione that perhaps _they_ were having two different conversations at the exact same time.

“In Severus’s shoes, I would be doing everything that’s in my power, to keep someone like you in my life, for as long as you would have me,”

Staring at her roommate with her mouth agape, Hermione’s brain sputtered to a stop.

“Remus…” she breathed. “I…”

“There’s my favourite married couple,” Sirius yelled from the kitchen.

“Don’t let Augusta hear that,” Remus shouted back jokingly with his face turned away.

Disappointment flooded Hermione’s veins like ice water.

“Tequila?” Sirius waved a bottle at them.

“Fuck _yes_ ,” Remus started towards the house. When she didn’t follow, he turned to her with a quizzical expression on his face. “Are you coming in? Or did you want to stay out here to…what is it - _sext_ \- with that boyfriend of yours?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she retorted a little more petulantly than she intended. “I need a minute,”

“Are you ok?” her roommate frowned in concern.

“I’m fine. I just…I need a minute,” she repeated lamely.

“If you need anything else though, yell,” he said. In a semi-serious tone, he added, “It’s going to be a cold night, and I won’t have you getting snot everywhere tomorrow,”

Sighing, Hermione stared up at the smog-filled sky and wondered what sins she must have committed in another life, to be put through such a mess as the one she was currently caught in.

***

**Remus**

Eleven came and went. By midnight, it was clear that despite their best intentions, none of their guests were leaving, which chafed at Remus’s inebriated state of mind. All night long, all he wanted was another second alone with Hermione. To his extreme dissatisfaction however, that one small thing was far too much to ask, it seemed, from an uncooperative universe.

“You could at least _pretend_ you’re having fun,” Harry pointed out, carefully avoiding his wife’s line of sight as he ducked behind a ledge. If Remus had to guess, the young man was deathly afraid his wife would drag him home to his twins - which was ridiculous, considering how determined Ginny was to get as tipsy as was decently possible.

“I’m having fun,” he insisted. “Loads of fun,”

“Right,” the brat snorted. “You haven’t taken your eyes off Hermione for even a second tonight,”

“Tell me something, when did _you_ figure it out?” Remus demanded belligerently. “Why was I the last to know?”

“If it makes you feel any better, you’re absolutely not the last to know,” Harry rubbed at the bridge of his nose. In his hands, he clutched an almost empty bottle of beer.

“So you think…” Remus took a sip of whiskey. “You think she might…”

“Christ,” Harry looked pained. “You and Hermione. You’re the _adults_ for fuck’s sake. Sure, she went to school with me but let’s not kid ourselves…”

“You have children,” Remus pointed out. “You’re practically a _doctor_ ,”

“And? What’s that got to do with anything?” Harry asked mulishly, tugging at the scrubs he hadn’t bothered changing out of.

Had he been sober, Remus could have explained to Harry exactly what he meant.

Sirius Black, Harry’s guardian and godfather, spent most of his free time either drinking, or fucking individuals whose good looks often superseded their good sense.

He on the other hand, spent his days pining after a woman he had no business wanting. At the same time, he kept going out on dates with a plethora of gorgeous women, and whose only criteria for being rejected was that they weren’t Hermione Granger.

Somehow, between himself, Sirius and Harry, the youngest of all three was also the only one of them who had his life in any sort of order.

At any other time, Remus might have been able to form an articulate explanation of what he was trying to convey. But thanks to all the wine and whiskey he been imbibing upon over the course of four hours, all Remus could manage was a pathetic, “You’re the adult now Harry. The rest of us - _we’re_ the children,”

“You’re wasted,” Harry’s lips twitched.

“Exactly,” Remus nodded sagely. “Yes,”

From the kitchen, Hermione yelled, “Remus, where the hell did you put the rest of the crisps?”

Ignoring the judgemental quirk of Harry’s right brow, Remus obediently opened his mouth to answer the summons of the woman who basically ran his house.

***

Less than an hour later, tromping back indoors from the garden, Sirius took one look at his pained expression, before he shoved a glass of clear liquor into his hand.

“Everything alright?” he asked, sipping on his own dose of Cabo Wabo.

“Sirius,” Remus turned towards him. “Tell me the truth. I’m an idiot aren’t I?”

“Oh yes,” the other man peered into the back garden where Hermione was pacing restlessly back and forth. “But you’re also a good man. You possess that increasingly rare quality known as ‘scruples’,”

“Sirius,” Remus threw back his helping of tequila. “I’m starting to feel like that’s exactly where I went wrong. Fucking _scruples_ ,”

Grimacing empathetically, Sirius reached out and clapped him on his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * What crazy cat lovers think about when their cats don't come say 'hi'
> 
> Actual A/N:
> 
> To anyone/everyone still reading...first of all, thanks for your continued patronage! Seriously! Just FYI I'll probably not be posting a new chapter next week, on account of getting wrist deep in oyster stuffing and turkey. Missed Canadian thanksgiving this year for reasons - so hopping South to visit family for another try...
> 
> To anyone celebrating, Happy Thanksgiving!


	19. Eight Days A Week: Chapter 5

**Remus**

**Sunday (Kind of Love)**

Remus awoke to the sensation of someone ramming a hammer repeatedly against his skull, from the _inside_ of his skull. Groaning, he dragged himself up to sitting and blinked into the early morning sunshine streaming in through his too-thin curtains. At the foot of his bed, Crookshanks was curled in the shape of an orange crescent; every few seconds, she released a small kitty-snore.

Even in his blurry, agonized state, and despite his widely established views on cats, Remus found himself quite charmed by the gentle noises the little beastie was producing.

Reaching out to stroke fondly at the ginger infiltrator’s ears, Remus tried his best to recall how the party ended. If he wasn’t mistaken, there had been a bottle of tequila, accompanied by a very persuasive Sirius…

Without warning, a messy head of curls dashed past his bedroom door. Wincing at the thunderous sound of her footsteps, Remus swung his legs over the side of his bed.

“Hermione?” he croaked wretchedly. “Are you ok?”

In answer, his roommate retched in high definition.

Groaning, Remus buried his face in his hands.

_That was the last time he was ever having a drink._

***

Against all odds, eventually, he managed to crawl his way out of bed. Lurching around his wrecked home, he cobbled together a pot of coffee, whilst downing several glasses of water in quick succession. Impressively, Hermione managed to join him after a while. Desperately, she gulped down an unholy amount of orange juice.

The two of them spent the rest of Sunday morning curled up on the sofa, binging on old seasons of Game of Thrones. Around noon, the lunch they ordered arrived, whereupon Hermione shuffled to the door to deal with the tedious business of dealing with the outside world.

Glancing at his mobile phone, Remus reminded himself to text Augusta, to let her know that their third date was off.

With a mental sigh, he conceded the unlikelihood of his feelings for his roommate going away anytime soon. Which of course, meant that it was incredibly unlikely that he would be able to start anything serious with anyone who wasn’t…well… _Hermione_.

The woman who held his heart in her firm, wiry hands returned to the living room also bearing an excessive amount of greasy Chinese food.

Studying her pale features as she set his Sweet and Sour Pork down on the coffee table, Remus wondered if he had dreamt the entire thing the night before…that is, the thing where Hermione and he had almost fell upon each other in a passionate kiss, two feet away from where they were now sitting.

“Are you sure you’re not going to throw up all over the rug?” he asked half-jokingly.

“No,” she threw him a murderous glare as she tossed him a set of disposable chopsticks.

Smiling despite himself, Remus reached out to snag some food.

He might have succeeded too, if only he hadn’t inadvertently brushed his hand against Hermione’s own.

The sensation that sparked between the both of them in that moment was practically electric; eyes widening, Remus turned his attention sharply towards the woman at his side.

Observing the manner by which his roommate sucked in a shaking breath, he could tell beyond a shadow of a doubt that the blazing current which had just passed between them, had not been felt by him alone.

With his heart thudding in his chest, Remus twisted his wrist to the right, and curled his fingers around her own.

The gesture elicited a fetching blush in her downy cheeks. Flicking her dark eyes away from him in a fit of uncharacteristic shyness, his companion didn’t make a single, token attempt to pull away from him.

Stilling his movements, Remus’s memories were suddenly filled with images of Hermione flushing prettily each time he brushed up against her in the kitchen; of Hermione’s sparkling eyes as she gazed up at him with that affectionate smile she reserved for him and him alone; of Hermione meeting his gaze across a crowded room, partaking in a private joke that had always _only_ been shared between the two of them.

On the television screen, a weeping Jon Snow cradled his dying Wildling girl, as Ygritte told him for the last time how very little he actually knew.

Forgetting their lunch, uncaring that their crispy noodles were getting less crispy and more soggy with every second that passed, Remus shifted their bodies with deliberate intent as hesitancy solidified into resolve.

“Remus?” Hermione murmured in surprise as he wrapped his left arm around her waist. With his right hand, he ran tremulous fingers over the shape of her face.

“Hermione,” he told her in a low, firm voice as his palm settled at her clavicle. “In about three seconds, I’m going to kiss you. If you have any objections, _now_ is the right time for you to say something,”

“Objections…” she blinked owlishly up at him. “I um. That is to say, I don’t have any,”

Eyes sliding shut, Remus proceeded to kiss the hell out of Hermione Granger.

The experience was everything and nothing like he had expected. More accurately, it transcended everything he had thought kissing her would be like.

The moment the tip of her tongue darted out to meet his own, the man knew he was lost, and that he had inadvertently traversed past a point of no return. There was absolutely no chance he wasn’t going to want to do this again and again…

…and no chance that he would ever willingly relinquish hold of Hermione into another man’s embrace.

Pressing her body against his own, the woman drew a happy groan from the depths of his chest. Clutching at a tattered handful of his old Radiohead t-shirt, she clung on to him as if he were her sole lifeline.

Humming in contentment, he shifted his attentions, and pressed soft kisses to her jawline as his right hand pressed insistently against the small of her back. Long fingers pushed past the waistband of her pyjamas to wrap themselves around the curve of her hip. Using his chin, he nudged aside her shirt collar, the better to bury his nose into the crook of her neck.

“God…” she breathed. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to kiss you,”

“How long have you been wondering?” he paused the progression of his left hand as it crept underneath the hem of her sleep-shirt. Breathing her in, Remus waited on her answer. Giddily, he reflected that the woman in his arms smelled like sunshine, and summer.

“Never you mind,” she teased as she ran curious fingers through his shortened locks. Her grip tightened near the base of his neck, as he resumed his exploration of her body.

“How long?” he insisted, his voice falling to an octave he barely recognized as he caressed the underside of her clothed breasts.

There had been times in recent history when Remus considered how he could probably die happy, if he could only spend the rest of his life memorizing the beautiful lines of Hermione’s profile. In the present, taking in the scarlet bloom warming the woman’s pale cheeks, he decided that _this_ was how he liked her best.

Hungry - for him and _only_ him.

“How long have _you_ been wanting this?” she countered with a slow smirk as she regained a measure of her composure.

Grinning, he quipped, “Irrelevant,”

Reaching for the TV remote, he stopped playback.

Rising to his feet, Remus swept one arm under her shoulders, and the other under her knees. Before she could protest, the man began striding towards the stairs with a very startled Hermione in tow.

Not twenty minutes ago, Remus had been one hundred percent certain he was going to die from his hangover. Now however…now, he could probably face down a dragon, and fucking _win_.

Probably, anyway. Maybe it was a good thing he had switched off the television.

“What are you…” Hermione looked adorably indignant as she kicked out in surprise. “I am perfectly capable of walking,”

“Dammit woman,” Remus told her in fond exasperation. “I’m trying to be spontaneous and dashing…so don’t ruin it with your silly _logic_ ,”

Shoulders shaking in mirth, she peered up at him with an amused smile. In answer, he dropped another kiss to her lips.

Ascending the stairs, somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice asked Remus if maybe he ought to slow things down. If maybe there should be more words exchanged first, before the both of them took a plunge into something irrevocable.

That voice also pointed out in a chafing manner, that the bed he wanted desperately to lay Hermione upon also happened to be the same bed he had once shared with his dead wife.

Reaching the threshold of his bedroom, Remus forced himself to halt his movements. Squeezing his eyelids shut and pressing his forehead against Hermione’s, he choked out, “Is this ok? Do you want…I mean, we can still…”

“Yes,” she answered, cupping his cheek and tilting her face up in an unmistakable demand for another kiss. “Yes Remus, this is more than ok, this is…”

Groaning, he shoved aside his reservations and pressed onwards.

Depositing the impatient woman onto his unmade bed, Remus knelt before her and tugged her shirt off with adolescent glee. In turn, Hermione hastily undid her own brassiere and threw it to who-even-cared-where.

Taking a moment to appreciate the sight of a topless woman in his bed, and to wonder if it were possible for him to die from too much joy, Remus’s hands eventually resumed their work as he divested his roommate of the rest of her pyjamas.

Pressing her body towards him, he took one teat in his mouth, and traced the tip of his tongue over the shape of her left nipple. Encouraged by the way she threw her head back with a gasp of sharp ecstasy, Remus did it again.

Drifting his fingers against her soft belly, his trailed his hand between her thighs. Stroking her covered centre, he pressed his thumb against her core and relished in the damp, wet heat he could feel through the thin layer of cotton she still wore.

Scraping his teeth over the top of her right breast, Remus slid Hermione’s panties off her smooth legs.

“I’m naked,” she sounded almost shocked. “In Remus Lupin’s bed,”

“Yes, you really fucking are,” he agreed enthusiastically, before he raised himself up to kiss her once more.

Drifting his right hand past her waist, he ghosted his fingers across her hip. Carefully he shifted his touch to the soft, sweet place between her thighs, and found to his delight, that she was waiting eagerly for his affections. Without any warning, he slid one, and then two fingers inside her. In fascination, he observed the way her eyes fluttered shut, and the way her mouth fell slack.

“Oh,” Hermione whimpered as he moved at an achingly slow rhythm. “Remus, that feels…that feels so _good_ ,”

Crooking the pads of his fingers against the wall of her quim, Remus employed every last, dirty trick he knew, for the sake of driving her past the point of coherency.

“Sweet girl,” he whispered as his thumb circled her clit. “My brave, sweet girl…come for me…”

“Oh god, Remus,” she implored, lost to the world. Crawling between her spread legs, carefully, he pinned her right shoulder to the mattress and picked up the pace of his ministrations.

“Come for me,” he repeated.

To his immense satisfaction, Hermione peaked with a soft, sweet scream.

Withdrawing his touch, Remus raised his fingers to his mouth, and revelled in the taste of the woman spread out before him like a decadent feast. Divesting himself of his own clothing as quickly as he could, he reached into his nightstand and withdrew a small foil packet.

When the necessary was completed, he settled his hips between her thighs. Summoning the last of his restraint, Remus said, very earnestly, “Hermione, I really…I want this…but if this isn’t what _you_ want…”

“Idiot…” she ran her hands over his bare chest, and looped them around his neck. “I want you. Inside me. _Now_ ,”

Choking back a laugh, Remus canted his hips and buried himself inside of her. Tangling his fingers in her curls, he leaned down and crushed her mouth to his.

Moving in an erratic rhythm, he focused on the small croons of pleasure Hermione was making, and the way her body felt as it slid against his own. Sliding one hand under her hip, he savoured the way she shuddered in unabated arousal, and luxuriated in the knowledge that she was trembling for _him_.

“Sweet, darling girl,” he whispered. 

“Oh god,” she murmured as her eyelids fluttered.

“Hermione, look at me,” he gasped. “Don’t look away…keep your eyes on me…”

Gasping, she fluttered her gaze upwards to meet his own.

“Good girl,” he breathed as he moved inside of her. “That’s my good girl,”

As one, the both of them groaned in pleasure as they found their release.

Collapsing in a pile of dazed wonder, Remus gathered Hermione into his arms.

“God…” he rasped against her hair. “That was _perfect_ ,”

“Oh yes,” she nuzzled her face into his chest. “Very yes,”

Laughing softly and holding on to each other tightly, the both of them fell into an exhausted nap.

***  
**Hermione**

**Another Sunday, Six Years Ago…**

On a street corner not five doors away from the Weasley’s, Hermione stopped running. Leaning heavily against a lamp post, the woman wondered if perhaps she hadn’t just made a horrible mistake.

“Hermione,”

Tilting her chin, Hermione found herself gazing upon a very concerned Remus Lupin, who was hurrying towards her through whorls of falling snow.

“I had only just stepped through Molly’s front door, when I was told you left. Actually…more accurately, I heard _why_ you left,” Remus said a trifle awkwardly as he skidded to a stop. Un-gloved hands tugged at his collar in a futile attempt to ward off the cold and the damp. “Are you…do you need…”

He paused.

“Drink?”

“Ah shit,” she griped. “Is Ron back there sobbing his broken heart out to everyone?”

“Just a little,” her companion admitted ruefully. “But he’s got Harry pushing whiskey at him so I’m sure he’ll live. It’s you I’m worried about however…”

“Right,” Hermione scowled. “It was very nice knowing you people. I’m off to settle myself into a life of ignominious loneliness. Goodbye Remus. _You_ were always my favourite,”

“You can’t mean that,” disbelieving laughter entered Remus’s voice. “You’re not really going to abandon us…are you?”

Scoffing a tad tearfully, she replied. “Molly’s probably already telling everyone within hearing range what a harlot I am, and how her little boy deserves someone who isn’t as cold and unfeeling as Hermione-Bloody-Grang…”

“Stop that right now,” he chided. “You’re the…Hermione, you’re the kindest person I’ve ever met in my life. You’re caring, and passionate and…”

“No, you stop it,” Hermione retorted severely. “I’m bossy, and mean, and I’m hopeless in a social situation. Add a decade or two on me, and all you’ve got is a sad spinster who’ll die alone with only ten cats to mourn her, and why not? I’m a horrible, terrible selfish bitch who…”

“Hermione,” Remus closed the distance between their bodies. His voice was pitched to a low, husky rumble. “Stop insulting my friend. I mean it,”

“Friend?’ she chuckled mirthlessly. “Oh Remus, it’s very kind of you to pretend that we’re still going to be friends after this. At the end of it, you and I both know that I’m an outsider. Now that I’ve broken Ron’s heart like the monster I truly am, I’ve likely been cut out of…”  
Remus interrupted her tirade by clapping a warm hand over her mouth.

“I pretend at nothing, you hear me? You’re a brilliant woman who deserves _everything_. It’s Ronald’s own sorry fault he couldn’t hold on to you,”

Blinking up at his beautiful face, Hermione suddenly couldn’t remember why she had been so upset to begin with.

“You’re not an outsider. Not to me, at any rate,” he continued. “You’ll always be my friend. I can only hope you feel the same…”

“Mmph,” she grunted eloquently against his hand.

“Shit, sorry,” he stepped back hastily.

“I am you know,” she said immediately. “Your friend, that is,”

“Good,” Remus murmured as he brushed snow from her hair.

For a very long moment, the two of them stood facing each other in almost bashful silence.

“You should get back to your evening,” Hermione said reluctantly.

“Don’t be stupid. My plans for the evening had involved spending time with friends - and you’re right here,” Remus slipped an arm around her. “Come on. I’ll text Sirius and we’ll get you wasted…you did just go through a break up after all. If that’s not an excuse to get utterly shit-faced and messy, I don’t know what is,”

“Maybe I could get really drunk and snog someone. You know…one of those rebound things,” Hermione joked as they began to walk down the snow-covered pavement. “Do you think Sirius would mind very much if I used him as a kissing post?”

When next Remus spoke, his voice was oddly choked. “That idiot would probably say ‘yes’,”

“Oh,” she blushed.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, I believe Sirius mentioned that he’s got a date lined up for tonight. Are you ok if it’s just the two of us?” her companion asked.

“It’s always ok Remus,” she answered tiredly. “Thank you. For being you,”

In answer, he squeezed her shoulder.

 

***  
**Sunday - Present day**

After their first, decadent round of lovemaking, Hermione awoke from their little nap to find Remus tracing patterns upon her naked skin with his lips.

“Remus,” she said through a yawn, wondering if she were still dreaming.

Part of her hoped she was still dreaming. If any of this were real, then she would have to confront the fact that she had just slept with one of her nearest and dearest friends…a mere four days after she had gone and shagged her former boss.

That last thought was enough to rouse her from the dregs of sleep.

“Remus,” she repeated, trying to ignore how good it felt to have his mouth pressed up against her. Propping herself up on her elbows, Hermione attempted to organize her thoughts. Simultaneously, he shifted himself in a southerly direction.

“Present,” he teased, flicking his eyes up to meet her gaze. Blunt teeth scraped against the spot where her right thigh met the rest of her body.

“Oh,” Hermione breathed.

Two seconds later, she forgot completely, what it was she meant to say, as Remus’s tongue flicked against her clit.

“Did you want something?” he wore a grating, knowing smirk.

“I…” she gasped as Remus ghosted his fingers against her sopping slit. “Oh…”

“Sweetling, I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me,” he told her even as his fingers began working their damnable magic. Lowering his head, he lapped at her again.

“Please…” she arched into his mouth.

Her roommate blatantly ignored her.

“Please Remus, I want…” she pleaded. “I need…”

Glancing down, she found herself gazing into a set of laughing grey eyes. “What you _need_ Miss Granger…is patience,”

Writhing fruitlessly in his firm grasp, Hermione decided very quickly, that this was torture she could endure - happily.

***

The rest of Sunday, or most of it anyway, was spent getting lost in a sexual haze. When the two of them were not intent on driving each other to wild ecstasy, Hermione found herself wrapped tightly in Remus’s arms. Every once in a while, he would whisper something deliciously filthy in her ear, or touch her in such a way as to set her belly fluttering.

Ignoring the soft clarion going off at the back of her head, Hermione allowed herself to be swept away upon tides of pleasure.

Instead of speaking, she allowed her tongue to form other eloquent shapes. Instead of thinking, she allowed her fantasies and his firm hand to guide her every move. Mealtimes came and went, with the both of them snatching what sustenance they could…

…though preparing food came with trials of its own, as Hermione soon discovered while in the throes of sandwich making.

“Remus,” she admonished sternly as her roommate lavished kisses down the back of her neck. Turning in his arms, she smacked his chest. “You’re not actually being _helpful_ right now,”

“My sincerest apologies,” he proclaimed insincerely. Grinning, he lifted her and set her upon the kitchen counter…right beside a loaf of bread she had been hoping to eat. “I didn’t realize I was supposed to be _helpful_ ,”

All around, evidence of the previous night’s debauchery was still spread out in plain sight. Dirty glasses, empty bottles and uneaten snacks littered almost every flat surface.

Smacking the side of his head, Hermione was rewarded with a kiss on her nose.

As Remus mapped his determined hands over her body, Hermione found herself leaning backwards…and shoving as far away as she could, the untouched bread. Distantly, she made a mental note to disinfect all surfaces in the house the moment she had a chance…

“You’re thinking too loudly,” he warned as he relieved her of her clothes once more. Not to be outdone, she fiddled at the his pyjama bottoms and freed him from their cotton confines.

Slanting his mouth over her own, Remus thrust inside of her in one swift motion.

“Hermione,” he gasped between kisses. “God you feel so good…why _haven’t_ we been doing this?”

Lost in the sensations Remus was eliciting in her body, Hermione repeated his name like an endless prayer.

***

With great reluctance Hermione extricated herself from a dozing Remus. The hour was growing late, and she was exhausted, both from copious amounts of sex and from her lingering hangover.

“Where are you going?” Remus demanded, sitting up in his bed.

Appreciating the view of his naked chest, Hermione nonetheless forced herself to make words happen.

“Knackered. Need sleep,”

“That’s what beds are for,” he grinned as he patted the spot where she had spent most of Sunday occupying.

“Is that such a good idea?” she frowned.

“Oh?” his smile began to fade. “Why not?”

“Because…”

Because Remus wasn’t Severus, and this wasn’t just a meaningless one-night fling; not to her, at any rate.

In all honesty, she had no idea what all of this meant to Remus…if anything. They had known each other long enough, she didn’t think the man was planning on using and then discarding her the way _Sirius_ often dealt with the women _he_ bedded.

Still….with the exception of Tonks, to Hermione’s knowledge, Remus hadn’t exactly been the relationship-type of man. Indeed, it hadn’t even been _that_ long ago when he confessed that his marriage to his departed wife had in fact been a product of a fling gone wrong…

Come to think of it, it wasn’t as if _she_ had been looking for a relationship so soon after Cormac. Short term flings - that had been the whole point of Oliver and Severus. Admittedly, Remus Lupin was absolutely an exception to that sloppy rule she’d erected…

 _Although,_ Hermione’s veins filled with sudden, panicked dread. _What if she had just fucked up her friendship with Remus? Her very important, very meaningful friendship with someone who meant everything to her?_

“Hermione…stay,” Remus reached out and grasped lightly at her hand. The way he said it, she couldn’t tell if he was simply still trying to be a good _friend_.

Objectively, what _was_ a few bouts of fucking between two long-time pals, when both individuals were extremely available?

 _Nothing_ , that’s what.

“Ok,” she nodded jerkily, feeling very grown-up and slightly nauseas all at once. “I should still brush my teeth at least,”

“That’s boring,” Remus yanked her back down into bed.

Mustering a smile, she informed him, “Dental hygiene is not _boring_ ,”

"I’ve got a better idea…” he stated, before he covered her mouth with his own.

Regardless of her growing anxiety, Hermione had to admit that her roommate had a point - kissing Remus was infinitely more interesting than brushing her teeth.

***  
**Remus**

It was only when Hermione began snoring, that Remus allowed himself to relax.

Gazing at her peacefully slumbering profile, very gently, he ran the pad of his thumb gently across her right cheekbone.

Earlier, as Hermione stood before him, genuinely contemplating whether or not she ought to spend the night in his bed, Remus had wondered for one horrifying second if he was actually going to have to resort to _begging_.

After a perfect day spent making love to the woman he had been yearning after for literally fucking _ages_ , the last thing he had expected was for reality to come crashing down over his head with such abrupt force.

All too quickly, he started to see how he might have just screwed himself over with his own, damnable impatience.

Studying his roommate’s heart-shaped face in the dimness of his bedroom, Remus didn't want to consider the unbearable possibility that perhaps this one day they shared as lovers, might also be the last.

However, he would also be a fool to keep on ignoring the fact that leaping into bed with Hermione might have been his worst mistake yet.

The woman was still recovering from a painful divorce, and she had been more than clear about the fact that she wasn't looking for any sort of emotional entanglement.

What if on top of destroying any possibility of a romantic future with her, he had also accidentally set fire to their friendship? What if she packed her bags and moved herself into one of those hovels she had visited in the recent past, all because he couldn’t control his needy impulses for a few more measly months?

What then? It wasn't as if he would be able to justify dragging her home again, should she choose to stop living with him.

Unbidden, he found himself recalling the day he found her kneeling amidst the blooms and herbs she had laid down in his back garden. That summer afternoon, he had gazed upon Hermione with fierce and overwhelming longing in his soul, imagining a life where he never had to come home to a house without her in it…

Forcing himself to stop conjuring the very worst of scenarios, Remus turned his mind to the way the woman had melted into him, the moment his lips had touched her own. He thought of the way she had breathed his name repeatedly as he made love to her, and the way she had held him close, so very close to her heart.

No, he decided with fresh resolve. He would not lose her, not tonight or anytime soon...not without a fight, anyhow. Tomorrow morning, they would talk, and tomorrow, he would convince her that they could do this.

Remus would take things as slow as Hermione needed. With every last crumb of his energy, he would devote himself to her, until she became as much his, as he was already hers.

He could do it, he _knew_ he could.

Allowing his eyes to slide shut, he fell asleep with one hand resting possessively against Hermione's waist.


	20. Eight Days A Week: Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare yourself. Rom-com nonsense is coming.

**Today is the Day**

**Remus**

There was a warm, breathing body laying beside him, which confused him greatly. Tilting his gaze, Remus noted groggily that he was holding on to an armful of woman. One very particular, very longed-for woman…

As wakefulness suffused his senses, he began to smile.

For a moment, Remus contemplated kissing Hermione to wakefulness, before indulging the both of them in another round of lazy lovemaking. However, the decisions he had come to just before he drifted off to sleep crashed through his thoughts.

With a small twinge of disappointment, very carefully, he steeled his resolve and reminded himself that long-term payoff was better than short-term gratification; he would not jeopardize their potential shared future, for the sake of another quick roll in his sheets.

Pressing a lingering kiss to Hermione’s forehead, Remus carefully extricated his left arm out from under his roommate’s slumbering body. Tugging on an old pair of jeans and a serviceable Batman t-shirt from the floor, he grabbed his charging iPhone and padded downstairs, towards the kitchen.

With a silly grin on his face, Remus googled for local businesses that delivered flowers on a public holiday. Passing the living room on his way to the kitchen, he caught sight of the still blooming white roses Hermione had set out two days before.

Gazing at their pale, full petals, an idea came to him. It was a notion so ridiculously romantic, he was certain his roommate (girlfriend?) would appreciate the humour in it.

Or at least, that was the hope.

***

Forty minutes later, hurrying around a cleaned-up kitchen, Remus put together french toast, bacon and coffee. On the dining table by Hermione’s coffee cup, a long-stemmed white rose lay atop a small, scrawled drawing of an arrow-pierced heart.

Setting down her plate of food, the man practically skipped his way out of the kitchen. Sucking in a deep breath, just as he was about to summon his roommate (girlfriend?) with promises of bacon and coffee, someone started knocking at his door.

Spinning on his heel, Remus’s eyes widened in horror as he remembered…

_Augusta._

Stalking hastily towards the front entrance, Remus prayed desperately that Hermione was somehow, still sleeping despite the small ruckus he had been making on the ground floor.

Sleepily, his roommate yelled, “If that’s my mother again, tell her to go away until after I’ve had some of that bacon,”

_Shitshitshitshit…_

Before Remus could address the situation, footsteps started down the stairway.

On the other side of the front door, Augusta knocked once more, in short, polite raps.

“Remus, are you even _thinking_ about answering that?” Hermione demanded with characteristic pre-coffee ire as she approached.

Contorting his lips into a sharp grimace, Remus unlatched his front door and twisted the handle. Less than half a second later, the man found himself greeted with a very passionate, very wet kiss.

Behind him, someone stumbled clumsily to a halt.

“Hello again,” Augusta breathed. “Are you ready to go? The film starts in an hour,”

A very unmanly squeak crawled its way out of Remus’s chest. Almost in response, Augusta, peered over his shoulder at his roommate; that is, the woman he was madly in love with, and had spent almost all of Sunday in bed with.

“Oh…hi! I mean…hello” August blushed and stepped away. “I didn’t realize we had an audience. I’m so sorry you had to see that! You must be Remus’s roommate - I’ve heard so much about you,”

“Please. Don’t let me _interrupt_ ,” Hermione said woodenly as the man of the hour nearly asphyxiated from panic.

“Hermione, this isn’t what…” he started, even as Augusta extended a hand in proper greeting.

“Remus tells me you’ve recently had some good news at work,” Augusta said sweetly. “Congratulations!”

“Did he say that? How nice of him…” Hermione side-stepped the other woman’s proffered gesture. “I’m so sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to shower this morning and I wouldn’t want to…I’m sorry. I can’t be here. I’m sorry,”

Before he could even think to stop her, his roommate disappeared back up the stairs.

“That was…odd,” Augusta frowned. “And a little rude if you want my opinion. Bloody millennials…honestly, how _do_ you live with someone so young?”

“Augusta, you can’t be here,” Remus blurted out.

“Pardon?” she gazed at him in undisguised shock.

“I should have texted you to cancel,” he said in a rush. “I’m sorry, but I can’t…this isn’t going to work,”

The woman tilted her head to one side. A certain light entered her dark eyes.

“When you said you weren’t married, you didn’t mean that you weren’t involved with someone else. You and this girl…oh my god. Are you _cheating_ on her with me? Did you think she wouldn’t be home at this time? Oh for fuck’s sake, did you invite me here so you could sleep with me you bastard?”

That last part was all but shouted. With some alarm, Remus noted that his front door was still wide open, and that people could hear every word that was being exchanged.

Mrs. Zabini was going to have such a field day…

“No!” he protested. “The truth is actually far more complicated than you…”

Footsteps clattered down the stairs again. This time, Hermione pushed past both himself and Augusta as she swept out the door with her head held high.

“Shit,” he swore. “Augusta, please, I have to stop her from leaving,”

“Oh that poor, _poor_ girl!” The woman seemed horrified and furious all at once. Swivelling her gaze back in his direction, with one last glare, the woman spat, “You’re a monster Remus Lupin,”

Spinning on her heel, Augusta departed in a blaze of fury.

Barefoot, Remus too, ran out onto the street. Peering this way and that, he found to his dismay that he had no idea where Hermione had gone. Digging for his mobile phone, desperately, he began to call her.

***

Fifteen times he tried calling, and fifteen times, he landed at her crisp voicemail, telling him to leave a message.

Returning dejectedly into his house and shutting the door behind him, Remus sank down to the ground with his back against the wall, and his legs stretched out before him.

Close by, Crookshanks meowed loudly, before she came and settled on his lap.

Stroking at the cat’s ears, Remus thought of breakfast sitting on the dining table going cold and uneaten.

Idly, he tried to picture Hermione’s happy smile…but all he could conjure in his thoughts were the humiliated tears he saw coursing down her cheeks as she fled his house.

All this, because he had forgotten to send a stupid text message to cancel on Augusta.

Stifling a defeated sigh, Remus buried his face in his hands.

After a while, Crookshanks nudged at him with her large, orange head, and purred in sympathy.

***  
**Hermione**

Halfway down the adjacent street, her convoluted thoughts began re-asserting itself. Sniffling and wiping at her face with the sleeve of her sweater, she started parsing through the events of the morning thus far.

First of all, Remus had left her alone in his bed, to wake up all on her own. That had been disappointing to say the least, but it had certainly informed her of his intentions, or lack thereof.

True, he had bedded her with enthusiasm. But then what man turned down easy sex, when it was practically being shoved in his face? Considering the company he kept - that is, Sirius Black - she really shouldn’t have expected _more_ from him than typical male boorishness.

She supposed she might not be so completely distraught, if only Remus hadn’t _compounded_ the situation by kissing another woman almost immediately after he had rolled out of bed. Indeed, the whole thing seemed so crass, so disrespectful and so…

Hermione stopped walking as a sense of self-hypocrisy overtook her senses. Slumping against a lamppost in exhaustion, she wished futilely for a cup of coffee to materialize before her.

Digging out her mobile phone, she pressed a single button, only to find herself staring at a ridiculous number of missed calls from Remus. There was also a flood of frantic messages from him asking where she had disappeared off to.

Ignoring his numerous texts, she caught sight of a single notification sent from Severus, which only caused her feelings of guilt to expand.

<Are we still on for later?>

Groaning aloud, Hermione rubbed at her forehead. Gathering her fortitude, she touched a green icon and placed the phone by her ear.

“Hermione,” Severus stated in lieu of a greeting the moment he picked up.

“Hi,” she started.

“You’re _calling_ me,” he sounded suspicious.

“I am,” she agreed.

Across the street, a woman walked her Pomeranian towards the park. The little beast yipped at Hermione as it passed, and showed its tiny teeth.

In response, she made a face at it.

“You’re not coming tonight are you?” Severus asked as the small dog disappeared around a corner.

“I’m sorry. I don’t…I don’t think it’s the right thing for me right now,” she focused her gaze on her ratty sneakers.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he said with feeling. “I’ve gone and fucked everything up,”

“Severus, it’s not…” she started.

“No…I should have done this _right_. When I told you I spent the last year thinking about all the ways I could proposition you, what I neglected to tell you was that I didn’t want a meaningless fling,” he said in a rush. “I like you, Hermione. A lot. Sleeping with you was certainly on my list of fantasies…but…what I really wanted to do, was to take you out to dinner, to watch films with you, to listen to your clever, scathing comments about _everything_ ,”

Viciously, Hermione kicked at the pavement.

“After we…after you came over…I spent the rest of the week regretting our little interlude,” Severus continued. “I should have been more specific about what I wanted where you were concerned,"

“Do you know, I’m beginning to suspect no one actually knows how to be an adult,” Hermione answered after a moment.

As the words spilled from her mouth, she immediately realized that her sentiments probably made zero sense to Severus.

“No, nobody does,”

Or perhaps he understood more than she gave him credit for, she thought.

“Sev…” Pinching the bridge of her nose, Hermione tamped down a wave of sincere regret. “Why couldn’t _you_ be the one I want? Everything would be so much easier if that were the case,”

“Let me guess. Something happened with your roommate at your party,” he said wryly after a moment. “Your, quote, “ _wonderful and understanding_ ” roommate,”

Blushing, Hermione recalled the way she had gushed about Remus to Severus.

“You’ve caught me at a very strange time of my life,” she said in response, quoting a line from some movie she couldn’t remember the title of.

“I suppose I did,” he sighed. “If you change your mind about me, let me know will you?”

Laughing was possibly the most insensitive thing she could have done. But it was also the only honest response she could have expressed, so she did it anyway.

Severus waited a moment before he too, began to chuckle.

“Goodbye Sev,” she said fondly.

“Not _goodbye_ Hermione,” he corrected. “I’m off to work for the competition. If you think you’re finished with me, you’re wrong. We still run in the same circles you know,”

“I suppose you’re right,” she considered. “In fact, I suppose you might wind up working for _me_ someday. Now wouldn’t that be interesting?”

Over the phone, Severus laughed again. “Granger, I would gladly follow you into the unknown,”

“See you later then,” she told him wistfully.

“Yes, I suppose that’s much better,” he answered.

Abruptly, he ended their call, but Hermione wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Turning her gaze towards the cloudy sky, the young woman weighed her options.

***

The place was as dark and as dirty she recalled, from that period of her life where she spent her time wandering the world in dazed sleeplessness.

Actually, it appeared much worse than before. Likely, it had to do with the fact that she was now gazing upon the interior of the Hog’s Head with lucid eyes.

Shaking her head and pursing her lips, Hermione continued her sojourn back into the depths of the grimy establishment. Seating herself beside a familiar pillar, she pulled out her laptop. To her dark amusement, her machine immediately latched on to the local wi-fi network.

Evidently, her MacBook had not forgotten its own past journey into this particular corner of hell.

“Coffee,” she told the bartender, who - again - stared at her like she was a particularly curious specimen of humanity.

“Are you sure?” he peered doubtfully at her. “By that, I mean are you sure you’re in the right pub?”

“Coffee,” she repeated firmly and a little more tersely than before.

“We don’t serve coffee,”

Lifting her right brow, Hermione glared. “I can see a coffee machine behind you. Make me a coffee. Now,”

Scowling, the heavily bearded man hesitated. Then, muttering under his breath, he complied.

Rolling her eyes, Hermione turned her attention back towards her laptop. Opening Safari, the woman stared hard at her browsing history.

That was the moment her heart began constricting with agonizing pain as she understood that she was going to have to go through the hassle and the awfulness of having to uproot her life once more.

Huffing softly, Hermione eyes slid shut as her mind played through the events of the last few weeks. First she had accepted a date with an idiot whose only goal in life was to get as ripped as possible…

Then, she went and slept with her Manager. The fact that she had gone home with Severus immediately after being told she was receiving a promotion thanks to him, didn’t speak very well of her judgement at all.

Of course, that second part was mere _days_ before she went and jumped in bed with Remus Lupin. Remus, her roommate, and her dear friend, who had sheltered her and comforted her when most she had needed someone to give her both.

With a sinking feeling, Hermione began to wonder if perhaps _she_ hadn’t been the unreasonable party, in the scene which had played out on Remus’s foyer less than two hours ago.

Thinking on, it wasn’t as if the man hadn’t given her any indication whatsoever, that their tryst was meant to be anything more than a one time thing.

Honestly, what right had she to be so angry with him after everything he had done? Remus been such a wonderful, supportive friend during this entire complicated mess that was her current life. For her to treat him now, as if he were some sort of heartless cad seemed ungrateful at best, and callous at worst.

There was a chance that Severus’s advice from months ago actually held true. Perhaps it really was time for her to consider talking to somebody professional, about all that she had gone through, and was _still_ going through in certain ways.

Flicking her attention back to her laptop, Hermione began searching for something very different from rental listings. Just as she was about to click into the website for a practice named “Pomfrey Family Therapy”, a familiar voice interrupted her dire thought process.

“Hermione,”

Turning slowly in her chair, Hermione tamped down a flare of irritation.

_Of course Remus would find her. Why was it always Remus? Why was it never Michael Fassbender or Jon Hamm?_

In the stillness which ensued, studying her roommate’s beleaguered expression, Hermione’s anger began to flag.

In the two hours since she had left him, her roommate appeared as though he had aged ten years. Something like pure desperation shone from his grey eyes, and the sight of it made her come to one final key piece of understanding.

No matter the chaos that was the current state of her personal life, she, Hermione Jean Granger, was one hundred percent head over heels in love with Remus John Lupin.

So where did that leave her?

***

**Remus**

The Hog’s Head was as awful as it had always been, but the air of misery was exactly what Remus needed. As always, the place provided the perfect setting for an episode of self-loathing, the perfect backdrop for him to truly _feel_ his despair.

Flitting his eyes around the dingy establishment, Remus suspected that none of the serving staff had bothered themselves with the task of wiping down the tables since the last time he had set foot inside this place.

As in, the time he found Hermione falling asleep in her seat…

…by the bar, where she was currently perched, staring at the screen of her Macbook.

For all of a second, the man literally swayed on the spot from a combination of deja vu, relief, and trepidation. Pulling his wits together, he closed the distance between himself and Hermione.

Doggedly, he attempted to ignore the squishy texture of the carpet as it sucked at the soles of his shoes - though he couldn’t stop himself from shuddering in revulsion all the same.

“Hermione,” he rasped.

Slowly, his roommate (ex?) directed her attention towards him.

“How did you find me?” she questioned after a stretched, speechless moment.

Close by, several patrons shifted away, determined not to get caught up in whatever drama was about to unfold. Not that Remus could blame them.

“I wasn’t _trying_ to find you. I came here to feel sorry for myself,” he said.

Hermione shut her laptop and began to stash it away into the confines of her massive purse.

“But now that I’ve found you, will you _please_ let me explain what happened earlier? I’m begging you, literally _begging_ ,”

Before his eyes, her movements stuttered to a stop.

Gazing at her beloved profile, Remus understood with terrifying finality, that the only thing that was going to save him now was brutal and complete honesty.

Taking a deep breath, he told her,

“I love you. I’m _in_ love with you, and I’ve been in love with you for _years_ …although that last part was something I wasn’t aware of, until very recently. Sirius and Harry knew however, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there…”

Blinking at him, Hermione let slip a surprised, “Oh,”

The Hog’s Head was the last place Remus had imagined having this conversation, probably because it was also the worst. The air as always, smelled like ancient, stale nicotine and the patrons were as usual, a collection the neighbourhood’s finest alcoholics.

There was nothing for it now, however, but to soldier onwards.

“I mean it Hermione, every word. The thought of you losing you now - _especially_ now - is the worst thing I could think of that could possibly happen. If you leave me, I will spend the rest of my life regretting my own stupidity. This morning was a complete mess, because I’m the idiot who forgot to send a simple text message - I should have told Augusta that the whole thing was off, but it completely slipped my mind,”

Swallowing hard, Remus gazed down at her unmoving hands.

“Please just…please give me one more chance. If you do, I swear to you, I will spend the rest of my days doing _everything_ in my power to make you happy. Yesterday was the best day of my life, and it was all because of…”

“Stop,” she interjected.

“…you,” he finished anyway as his eyes lifted to trace the shape of her lovely features.

“One text message was it? To tell her your date with her was off?” she asked warily.

“Yes,” Remus nodded, clenching his fists at his side as he waited on Hermione’s verdict.

The bartender brought his roommate a steaming cup of coffee. Lifting the small, stained cup, she sniffed at its contents, then took a sip.

“There’s a chance I might have overreacted,” she said, as she put the cup back down. Raising her eyes to meet his own, Remus saw not only traces of remorse in their dark depths, but also, hints of something far sweeter…

Clutching the back of a neighbouring bar stool, Remus tried to pretend he wasn’t about to collapse out of sheer relief onto a disgustingly filthy floor.

“Though you’ll have to forgive me for storming out the way I did,” she continued dryly. “I didn’t exactly expect to see some strange woman sticking her tongue down your throat, first thing in the morning after we spent the night together,”

“I’m so sor…” he started, only to be silenced by a slim finger being pressed across his lips.

God, but her touch felt so good.

Impulsively, Remus reached up and grasped tightly at her hand.

“But that doesn’t discount the fact that maybe…maybe this was a terrible idea, us sleeping together. The thing is…” she twisted at an errant curl with her free hand, though she might as well have been twisting at the sinews of his heartstrings.

“The thing is, I’m also very much in love with you…just in case you were, you know, _wondering_ ,”

Squeezing at her fingers, Remus’s heart soared towards the heavens.

“I’m still going through a divorce, which isn't even finalized. Getting involved with you seems like a wonderful idea, but you have to admit, I’m not exactly the safest bet.” she continued. “I accepted a date with a muscular idiot, right before I went home with my boss. Then, almost immediately after, I slept with my roommate…whose friendship I treasure, and which I _absolutely_ do not want to lose,”

Gulping away what little doubts he still possessed, Remus answered truthfully, “Our friendship has become the most important thing in the world to me. But while I absolute regret my _horrible_ timing…Hermione, I don’t want us to stop exploring what we’ve only just started,”

The first hints of a smile began to grace her lips. In a low whisper, she confessed, “I don’t want to stop either,”

Stepping in close, Remus promised softly, “If we do this, we’ll go as slow - or as fast - as you need,”

“But…” she gestured helplessly wth her free hand. Without stopping to think, Remus made a grab for it, and tugged Hermione off her bar stool.

“We…we _slept_ together, you and I. We live with each other, and apparently, we’re in love with each other. Doesn’t that mean we’re _doomed_ to fail?” she asked in consternation.

As far back as he could remember, Remus had always considered Hermione to be one of the brightest persons he had ever met. But when it came to matters of the heart, she had never exactly the sharpest tool in the box…

“I’ll admit, we’re doing things a little backwards,” he conceded as happiness began to suffuse his entire being. “But then again, I’m not exactly a relationship expert,”

“So what are we to do about this then?” she seemed genuinely confused, though her voice held a note of mirroring hope.

“For _today_ at least, here’s what we’re going to do,” he cupped a hand against her cheek. “We’re going to go home, and I’m going to clear away all the food which I cooked for breakfast. After that, we’re going to have ourselves some lunch…”

“Actually, I would still like some bacon if you don’t mind,” she made a face. “I was denied bacon earlier…which I believe you were making for _me_ ,”

Laughing, Remus drew her into the affectionate circle of his arms. “Fine, you demanding wench. There’ll be bacon. After lunch, we’re going to go for a long walk. When it gets late enough, I’m taking you out to dinner. We’re going to drink, and eat, and enjoy each other…”

“That sounds a lot like most of our other weekends,” Hermione observed helpfully, with a mischievous grin.

“Except for the part where I’m going to hold your hand every chance I get. Hermione, I’m going to hold your hand _hard_ ,” Remus explained gleefully. “Fair warning, I’m also planning on stealing a few kisses. So you’re prepared for this, I’m planning on kissing you goodnight when I leave you outside your bedroom door, before we go to bed tonight,”

“Leave me outside…” she sputtered indignantly as she curled her fingers into his rumpled shirt. “Really? So we’re going to put a stop to…that is… _really_?”

Squinting, Remus failed to understand what the woman was trying to articulate.

Lowering her voice to a discreet hiss, she demanded, “No more _sex_? That seems a bit extreme if you want my opinion,”

_Oh._

Giddily, Remus decided that the Hog’s Head was now his most favourite establishment in the entire universe. At the back of his mind, he wondered if the pub accommodated weddings…

 _One thing at a time old man_ , he reminded himself.

Gallantly, he promised, “Anything, and everything you want,”

“What about tomorrow?” she inquired with a tilt of her head. “What do we do tomorrow?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” Remus shrugged. “I was thinking we could take everything a day at a time,”

Off to the side, someone cleared their throat rather pointedly. Looking over a head of riotous curls, Remus caught the barman’s glaring blue eyes. Belatedly, the man remembered that both himself and his girlfriend(?) had an audience. A drunk and somewhat frightening audience, but an audience nonetheless.

Gruffly, the bartender barked, “Are the two of you planning on ordering anything else? Or will you be leaving soon? If you’re staying, will you please stop making a scene?”

Groaning in embarrassment, Hermione buried her face in his chest.

Deciding he didn’t care who was watching, Remus tilted her chin up, and pressed a kiss to her lips.

“Darling,” he murmured eventually. “Will you please come home with me now?”

“Yes,” she told him softly. In his entire life, Remus doubted he had ever heard a sweeter syllable.

Digging into his pocket, he placed some money on the counter for the barman’s troubles. Reaching for Hermione’s hand, the both of them strode out of the Hog’s Head, onwards to a future which they weren’t exactly certain of, but which now seemed better filled with hope.

Individually yet all at once, they both supposed they couldn’t have asked for a better ending, than the beginning of something wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nothing for it now but an epilogue.
> 
> Note: I'm on a shit ton of Day Quil so do pardon grammatical/spelling/trite mistakes.
> 
> Note: (and this is purely a joke for anyone still reading after that rom-com esque silly ending) i've been thinking for a while that there really ought to be a 'this is where i leave you button' beside the kudos button on a per chapter basis. again, this is literally an occupational hazard. i have a feeling tons of other writers on this site probably wouldn't want this feature.


	21. Epilogue

**Remus**

The wedding was long overdue. 

Or at least, that’s what the people sitting up front kept on repeating. 

Remus wasn’t very familiar with those attendees, nor did he care very much for their opinions. What he did care about, was how uncomfortable his stupid suit was, and how much he wished he didn’t have to wear a tie. 

“Stop fussing,” Sirius hissed from beside him. “People will think you’ve never had to wear a proper suit before in your entire life,”

“I have made a _career_ out of avoiding three-piece suits. _Literally_ ,” Remus retorted. “Suits are for boring business people,”

All the ceremony attendees were sitting in Molly Weasley’s venue of choice, staring out at what appeared to be acres and acres of marshland. 

Frankly, Remus had no idea so much marsh existed just outside the city. It boggled the mind. Granted, the ceremony and soon-to-be reception area was festooned with white balloons, silver ribbon and white tulle…but a marsh was a marsh. 

“Spoken like a true, spoiled idiot who works in tech,” Sirius sighed, looking coolly unflustered in his spiffy Armani suit. “I have to admit, it’s nice seeing you dressed like an adult for once,”

“First of all,” Remus sniffed. “I’ve just been promoted to the role of AVP at work - if that doesn’t make me an adult, I don’t know what does,”

“AVP means what, you’re now a glorified Senior Manager?” his best friend rolled his eyes. 

“Yes, but Associate Vice President has a much better ring to it,” Remus conceded. 

“Speaking of rings…” Sirius shifted restlessly.

Immediately, Remus cast him a warning glance.

“What, are we not…” the other man gestured in confusion.

“Could the both of you please act _normal_ for once?” Ginny hissed from Remus’s left. 

There was a certain note in her voice which caused Remus to stop twitching. Straightening his spine, he realized with some embarrassment that his pose mirrored that of her three-year-old twins.

“Have the two of you set a date?” she asked in a low whisper.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Remus answered, abiding staunchly by the rules Hermione had set for him that very morning.

“Of course you don’t. But if I could get a general idea, that would be nice. I’m trying to plan a trip to France next summer, but I wouldn’t want to miss…” the woman trailed off as the appointed Officiant stood up before the seated crowd. 

Rising to his feet, Remus turned his gaze towards the end of the cleared aisle. Soon enough, the bridal party stepped into view. 

Amongst Lavender’s coterie of maids, Hermione stood, looking regally uncomfortable in the diaphanous confection she had been forced to don. Her arm was slung through the crook of a groomsman Remus didn’t recognize, and who shuffled awkwardly from side-to-side. 

A year ago, Ron lost a long and hard-fought battle to have Hermione on his side of the wedding party. 

Generous in her victory, Ron’s fiancé made Hermione one of her bridesmaids instead. To Hermione’s chagrin, instead of the tuxedo she had been looking forwards to wearing, she found herself being squeezed into something just a little more delicate and feminine than she was used to.

“I know her name is ‘Lavender’, but did we all really need to _wear_ purple?” Hermione had growled in frustration two months ago when she had brought her dress home. 

Twirling this way and that in front of their shared mirror, Remus couldn’t help but recall another wedding, which had taken place years and years before. In his memories, he thought of the seed pearls in her hair, and of the way she had bestowed upon him, her true, sweet smile.

“It’s not so bad,” he murmured as he came up behind her. Very slowly, he had unclasped the long row of buttons running down the length of her spine. In fascination, his eyes had traced the way her bare shoulders trembled in anticipation in response to his touch…

Despite the physical distance stretching between them, the glitter of a diamond on Hermione’s finger brought Remus’s attention back to the wedding ceremony. He had placed that stone on her finger less than a week ago, after she had agreed to his stuttering suggestion that they spend the rest of their life together.

“Stop smiling,” Sirius grunted. “You look demented,”

“Correction - I look _happy_. You’re just jealous you don’t get to be this happy,” Remus kept his eyes fixed on his fiance. “Anyway, it’s a wedding. These things are supposed to be cheerful, or something,”

“I’m not jealous. I happen to be in a very fulfilling relationship with…”

“ _Siri_!” a high, feminine voice screeched from the back of the crowd. In doing so, the newcomer broke the reverent silence which had befallen the tent only a few seconds prior. 

Choking back a shout of laughter, Remus observed as _everyone_ tilted their inquiring gaze towards his best friend. Shaking with barely hidden mirth, Ginny said breathlessly, “Sirius, I suspect she means _you_ ,”

Mortified beyond measure, Sirius waved his date over. Under his breath, he muttered, “I’m getting too old for these girls,”

“There there,” Remus said out the corner of his mouth. “She’s what, twenty-five?”

“Your fiancé just turned _thirty_ three months ago,” Sirius pointed out sulkily.

“ _Technically_ , you’re not wrong. But, see…Hermione’s an adult,”

As Sirius’s date materialized with a loud squeal, the other man mouthed the words ‘ _help me_ ’. 

Shaking his head, Remus drifted his gaze towards a far pleasanter sight…

***

**Hermione**

Forty-five minutes before she was scheduled to be officially wedded, it finally occurred to Lavender Brown that marriage was theoretically supposed to be a _lifelong_ contract. 

“But what if I start to hate him?” the blonde wailed, disregarding her carefully applied, but very non-waterproof Nars mascara. 

“You won’t!” Parvati, the Maid-of-Honor exclaimed. It would have helped if the woman’s protest had held even a little conviction. 

Frantically, Hermione patted the bride’s blonde tresses. Glancing around, she wondered if it was still too early for a drink. 

“Ron’s the most wonderful man in the world,” Hermione told her as soothingly as she could.

Lavender glared. “Oh really? If he’s so wonderful, why did _you_ leave him!”

“That’s right, I did leave him,” Hermione took a deep breath. 

_Patience_ , her therapist’s voice repeated in her head.

Pasting on a smile, she asked, “But look what happened after I left him?”

“You found the love of your life and now you’re due to marry him!” Lavender burst out. “I mean, look at that massive rock he gave you!”

Hermione dropped her frantic gaze to her ring finger. Really, she ought not to have worn her new engagement ring to Ron and Lavender’s ceremony…but it wasn’t as if she was going to _stop_ wearing it simply because Lavender’s disposition to _everything_ had recently become ridiculously oversensitive.

“Actually, I left Ron and ended up marrying a total prick-face,” Hermione corrected. Grasping hard at Lavender’s shoulders, she reiterated, “Ron’s a _wonderful_ man. We weren’t right for each other. But Lavender he’s _perfect_ for you. Perfect. Do you know how rare it is for anyone to find their perfect… _soulmate?_ ”

How many times could she use the word ‘perfect’ in an hour? Hermione had a feeling she was about to find out.

“I mean…” Lavender tried to catch her breath. “He is isn’t he? Perfect?”

“ _So_ perfect,” Hermione smiled broadly. “For you,”

“Oh ‘Mione…” Lavender wiped at her mascara. “I’m doing your hair at _your_ wedding. Don’t argue. This isn’t a negotiation. I was thinking we could experiment with a fishtail braid…I mean, it’ll be _very_ hard with the state of your curls and all that, but don’t you worry, I have a few tricks up my sleeve,”

Mutely, Hermione nodded.

“For your _third_ wedding, I was thinking we could experiment with a bob…” Lavender pursed her lips critically.

Mentally, the beleaguered Bridesmaid began preparing for her monthly session with the very qualified, and very capable Dr. Pomfrey, Psy.D.

 

***

“What do you mean you don’t have Writer’s Tears?” Hermione demanded. 

Behind the bar, the young man manning the liquor tried to maintain his composure.

“I’ll have you know, I’m part of the _bridal_ party, and…”

“Darling,” a familiar voice murmured by her ear. “Why don’t you give something else a try?”

“But…” she turned a mutinous gaze up at her fiance. 

“We have a full bottle at home, I promise,” Remus sighed. “Was it really so bad?”

Instead of answering him, Hermione directed her attention back towards the visibly-intimidated bartender. In a defeated voice, she waved a tired hand and said, “I’ll take a single malt. Any single malt,”

“You look gorgeous by the way,” Remus assured her. “Very…graceful. _I_ thought anyway,”

Flicking her gaze towards the man she had all but pledged the rest of her life to, Hermione made a skeptical noise at the back of her throat.

“Sweetheart, lighten up,” Remus kissed her forehead even as he spanned his hands around her waist. “You’re a great bridesmaid,”

“Oh god I hope so,” Hermione reached for the very full glass of scotch which had been placed on the counter in front of her. Taking a long sip, some of the tension began to ease from her shoulders. Grimacing, she patted at her tightly bound hair with her free hand. “This thing is giving me a headache,”

“Let me help,” 

Deftly, the man plucked several pins from her neat chignon. Loosed from their bonds, wild curls tumbled down Hermione’s back in thick, messy waves. Pulling her so she rested flush against him, he murmured, “Much better,”

Perhaps it was the Laphroaig rushing through her veins, but Hermione’s breathing fell into an uneven pattern as she gazed up into her intended’s eyes. Melting against the planes of his body, she set her glass down, and proceeded to twine her arms around his neck.

“You look lovely,” he told her, smiling down at her in a way she had never see him smile at anyone else. “Slightly belligerent, but lovely all the same,”

“I think…” Hermione said conversationally as she ran her fingers through his sandy hair. “People might know we’re engaged,”

To her gratification, he immediately flushed in sympathy, suddenly no longer as suave and smooth as he was a second ago.

“Yes, that’s been brought to my attention,” he admitted. Looking a little alarmed, his eyes widened as he continued, “I didn’t _tell_ anyone…not even Sirius. They all just _guessed_ ,”

“No, it’s my fault,” Hermione sighed and waved the engagement ring in Remus’s face. “I should have left this at home,”

“Don’t be ridiculous. That’s not why,” he assured her unconvincingly.

Hermione rolled her eyes.

“I hope you know…” she said as everyone began to gravitate towards their assigned dining tables. “I expect our wedding to be far less obnoxious,”

“I’ll settle for anything less _marshy_ ,” he was only half-joking. “There are literally a billion mosquitos circling us as we speak,”

“That too,” she agreed as their foreheads leaned against each other’s. “Remus?”

“Yes?” he asked softly.

She wanted to ask if he knew that he would never be mean, or cruel, or stupid in the years to come. She wanted to know if he would never change, and be exactly as wonderful as he was right at this moment.

In the soft light of the white tent, as Hermione studied Remus’s grey eyes, she took in the honest and sincere affection he bore for her and found to her relief that she had all the answers she needed. 

Reaching up on her tiptoes, Hermione pressed her lips against Remus’s own.

“You know darling, we could simply fly off to Las Vegas,” he whispered as they broke away from each other. “It’s legal. It’s simple…”

“Or…” she laughed softly. “We can simply do this the hard way,”

Allowing him one more kiss before she went off to perform the last of her bridesmaid duties, Hermione shut her eyes, and let herself enjoy this one, perfect moment. 

“I love you,” she told him quite honestly.

“I love you too,” he answered immediately, with ardent candour.

Grinning at each other, hand-in-hand, the two of them wandered towards their friends, without casting a single glance behind them.

**The End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright that's it for this fic folks. Hope the epilogue wasn't too terrible.


End file.
